JUDICIARY CLEAN-UP: NJC Needs More Sincerity!

By Tonnie Iredia

No one disputes the fact that many problems currently confronting Nigeria’s judiciary are caused by a few bad eggs in the system as it is in many other organizations. If those few bad eggs are not quickly expelled or aggressively beaten into line, the cancer they have attracted into that arm of government in the last couple of years will soon quickly spread all through the system.

What this suggests is that the greatest problem facing the Nigerian judiciary today is not the continuing recklessness of the so-called bad eggs but the apparent lack of courage and sincerity of those at the top to hold the bull by its horn and call everyone to order. The implication of this is that the posture of the National Judicial Council NJC which is empowered to regulate the judiciary is inadvertently increasing the bad eggs.

Nigeria: A Captured Temple Of Justice

 By Chidi Odinkalu

In July 2023, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, presided over a meeting of the National Judicial Council, NJC, to appoint his own son a judge of the Federal High Court. On October 4, as his father presided over the swearing in of his own son, it fell to the Old Students Association of Ikolaba Grammar School, which the new judge attended for his secondary education, to defend his appointment with the cringe-inducing statement that “contrary to claims in some quarters, Ariwoola Jr.’s appointment as a judge was not on the influence of his father, who is the CJN”. They lacked the standing to say this, of course, because they could not possibly know how he was appointed.

 In June 2023, the NJC convened to approve the elevation of the President of the Court of Appeal’s son-in-law. This individual has previously been appointed as a judge of the National Industrial Court of Nigerian, NICN, a mere six years earlier in 2017. 

Hunger And Anger In The Homeland

 By Hope O’Rukevbe Eghagha

There is hunger in the land. Real hunger. There is food and food everywhere. But majority of our citizens cannot afford to feed three times daily. Inflation is eroding the purchasing power of the naira. Transportation costs have gone up. The costs of medications have gone up. Incomes have not gone up. It is cheap to die; it is also expensive to die.

A paradox. A little emergency could take one’s life. Organ failure, expensive to treat, can take one’s life too. People are starving. I do not refer to quality of feeding. I am concerned that there are too many people who are now compelled to go through days without meals.

Odds Against N500bn Palliatives By Government

 By Onyemaechi Eze

The removal of fuel subsidy by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on the first day of assumption of office was ill-timed, out-rightly ill-advised and uncalled for. The president with his team was in a better position to understand that without an enabling environment, a team on ground to drive policies, decisions made without right thoughts are always counter-productive. Nigeria is unfortunately a nation where government does not function as expected even when a team is in place, let alone when there is none.

The decision had upon announcement immediately jolted the foundation of market forces and sent shock waves through the fabrics of the general economy. Consequently, the people were exposed to unimaginable hardships. Everyone is sad, pained and disenchanted as cost of goods and services increased exponentially and still increasing. The exchange rate along with inflationary trend leaves everyone dazed. Even the rich and politicians are crying!

The First Fruits Of A Crooked INEC

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

Evidence of the scope of the mess created by Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) under the leadership of Mahmood Yakubu began to emerge this past week. It all suggests network egregiousness on a monumental scale that easily rivals the elections of 2007, until now seen as the nadir in Nigeria’s journey of elective governance.

*Yakubu

As the National Judicial Council (NJC) released the names of the 257 judges who will sit to consider and decide on elections petitions around the country beginning in May 2023, it emerged this past week that so far 1,044 petitions have been filed against results declared by the INEC in the 2023 elections. That is already more than 70% of the 1,490 seats contested and it appears that these are not the final numbers.

As Anambra State Confronts An organized Crime Family

 By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu

On 6 November, 2021, Anambra State, at 4,844 km² the second smallest state by landmass in Nigeria – Lagos State with 3,577 km² is the smallest – is scheduled to go to the polls to elect a new governor. Preceded by no campaigns or debate and defined by an orgy of mass murder, this Anambra election will go down as one of the most disembodied in Nigeria’s recent history. It is a battle between those who see elections as a game of numbers (no matter how procured) and those who seek to ensure that elections are based on credible counting and accounting.

This election is a defining battle for the future of (south-east) Nigeria. If Anambra produces a governor who, like the one in neighbouring Imo State, is manifestly without legitimacy, there will be no end to the crisis in that part of Nigeria. To understand why this is so, it is essential to recap the story of how Anambra’s governorship elections went off-cycle because it presents a resilient cast of characters that represent a dominant strain of criminal impunity in electoral politics in Nigeria.

The Discharge Of Justice Niyi Ademola, Wife And Joe Agi SAN: Matters Arising

By Mike Ozekhome

Justice Adeniyi Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja, has just been discharged by an FCT High Court, Abuja, coram Justice Jude Okeke, after a no case submission by his defence counsel. His wife, Olubowale and Mr. Joe Agi,SAN, with whom he was tried, were equally discharged.

Justice Ademola and wife

This is an obviously laughable and anti-climax after all the "gra gra", grand standing, posturing, rabble rousing and wanton degradation of the judiciary by their transducers.

This discharge, after the horrific humiliation of Justice Ademola, whose home was savagely invaded by rampaging, masked and hooded DSS operatives, between the ungodly and unholy hours of 12 mid night to 5am! Windows and doors were bestially broken down and the Judge whisked off like a common criminal inside a pick up van.

We were told to shut up, not to complain, because the government was fighting the monster called corruption. Never mind that the inner corridors and dark recesses of the same government reek and stink of putrid and horrendous corruption, with the very government rising up on each occasion to defend its corrupt officials.

A case of wanting to sweep your neighbour's house clean when your own house is dirty and stinking. A clear case of attempting to remove the mole from your neighbour's eye when a log is embedded in yours. Justice Ademola was forced to abdicate his judicial functions.

The Trouble With Fake NGOs

Lewis Obi

The oddities, even barbarities, of Nigeria’s daily life can sometimes be truly overwhelming.  Some of them occur so frequently that they compel Nigerians to think they are normal.  An example is the “big” protest in Abuja last week over the Shi’ite cleric Ibraheem El-Zakzaky.  He has been detained without charge for one year.  So you sigh in relief, and say, oh, some freedom-loving patriots want the old man tried or freed.  He has suffered like the Biblical Job.

On the contrary, the protest was for the exact opposite.  In the new era of ‘fake news’ I try to be choosy but I just could not resist trying to know why “thousands of Nigerians are currently protesting against the ruling of a court that incarcerated leader of the Shi’ite Islamic Movement in Nigeria, Sheikh Ibraheem Zakzaky, be released unconditionally.”

The protesters were said to have taken over the Federal High Court Abuja and had arrived under the high-sounding banner “Coalition on Good Governance and Change Initiative (CGGCI).”  That automatically suggests a charitable non-governmental organization (NGO) devoted to issues of good government and positive change in society.  You would also imagine that a ‘coalition on good governance’ would be dead set against the detention of a Nigerian citizen for more than 48 hours without charge.  That’s what the Constitution demands.  A constitutional democracy ought to faithfully follow the rule of law and due process to realize good governance.  But the CGGCI was clearly against the rule of law and due process and was, indeed, advocating what amounted to tyranny.

The CGGCI protesters attacked Justice Gabriel Kolawole saying the judge seems oblivious of the “dangerous precedence (sic)” his ruling will have on “law enforcement, security, anti-terror fight, terrorism, and extremism and secessionist movements in Nigeria.”  Remember that the Department of State Security (DSS), which seems to be the grandfather of this coalition, (Esau’s hand and Jacob’s voice) once told the public that the Sheikh was being imprisoned for his own safety.  At trial the judge apparently asked for proof and got none.  This was why the judge made references to crimes “not known to law” of which the government was accusing the Sheikh by innuendo.

The chairman of the CGGCI is a man named Comrade Okpokwu Ogenyi.  When Nigeria was a country, a comrade was considered a people person, a friend of the masses, a man who would understand basic things about the oppressed, and an NGO like CGGCI was expected to stand with you to fight for fundamental human rights.  Now we are in the Orwellian 1984.  So, it was Comrade Ogenyi’s view that by ordering the release of a man who has been incarcerated for 12 months without charge, “the judiciary has dealt a fresh blow to the future of Nigeria by legalizing terrorism while leaving the rest of the people at risk of losing our lives (sic).”

Corruption: Suspension For All

By Paul Onomuakpokpo  

While the plaudits tend to dim the caution against the danger of repudiating the constitutional forts that guarantee the stability of our society in the guise of prosecuting the anti-corruption campaign, we must keep on reminding ourselves of the desiderata for the realisation of the vision of a transparent society that President Muhammadu Buhari seemingly holds.

*Buhari 

As this column has often stressed, there is no doubt that corruption is an enervating plague that must be rooted out of our society to pave the way for an equitable distribution of the wealth with which this nation is immeasurably endowed.

Yet, in arresting and prosecuting the corrupt among us, we must guard against being befuddled by our identification with the ruling party. It is such uncritical alignment that has blurred the vision of those who should have declared the obvious excesses that have smeared the anti-corruption campaign intolerable.

True, no one who is keenly aware of the grim reality that the nation has suffered despoliation due to the complicity of the corrupt guardians of the laws of the land would query the raid on the residences of judges who allegedly have been living on sleazy funds. Again, we cannot easily render impeachable the idea of the judges being on suspension until they exonerate themselves from their alleged involvement in practices that strongly detracted from their professional integrity.

Thus, the National Judicial Council (NJC) may soon buckle under the pressure being mounted on it to suspend the judges. The NJC may no longer bear being accused of complicity with the judicial officers whose residences the Department of State Services (DSS) raided for allegedly perverting the course of justice after being bribed with dollars. Of course, apart from the DSS and the president, no one else knows how compelling the incriminating evidence against the judges are. But to save the judiciary from the moral absurdity of judges accused of corruption presiding over cases of financial sleaze, they may have to be suspended while their investigation lasts.

But it would remain an ominous omission that mocks the anti-corruption drive if it is only the judges that would be on suspension because of the allegations against them. This is where the Buhari government must allow equity to lend credibility to the anti-corruption campaign. The judges have alleged that they are being haunted by the security agency of the government not because their professional credibility is in question, but simply because they have refused to do the obnoxious bidding of some of those in the ruling party.

Indeed, they did not mince words. Justice Sylvester Ngwuta accused the Minister of Transportation, Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi and Ogbonaya Onu of asking him to influence judgments in their favour. Ngwuta alleged that Amaechi asked him to illegally remove Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State and Nyesom Wike of Rivers State as governors. Before then, Justice John Inyang Okoro accused Amaechi of asking him to pervert justice by making sure that election appeal cases for Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Abia states favour him.