By Henry Umoru

As part of the process for his confirmation as Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad was drilled last week by members of the National Assembly on several issues pertaining to the administration of Justice in the country.

CJN Tanko Muhammad

The essence of the drill was to ensure that he understood the problematic issues in the Justice sector and has the wherewithal to tackle them.

While Justice Muhammad appeared to have performed creditable well with some of his responses to the barrage of questions from the lawmakers, his remarks on ‘technicalities’ have since been generating   various reactions from lawyers and individuals who believed he goofed on the matter. While some lawyers have written articles to expose what they described as Justice Muhammad’s   ‘lack of understand of technicalities’ many have taken to the social media to make a mockery of the CJN.

With so many narratives from critics, the real words   about Justice Muhammad really said appear to be now subject to so may interpretation.

Breaking: Buhari forwards Tanko Muhammad’s name to Senate for confirmation as CJN(Opens in a new browser tab)

But what really did the CJN say?

Senate Minority Leader, Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe, PDP, Abia South

in a veiled reference to the recent Supreme Court judgement on Osun state Election  had sought to know the views of the CJN on technicalities’ in judgements.

In his response, the CJN said: “Permit me to say that what is a technicality, is something which is technical by definition. It is something that is not usual, that may sometimes defile all the norms known to normal things. It may be technical. We have technicalities in our laws and this is because these laws that we have inherited, we inherited them from the British. The British had for some time ago introduced what is known as technicalities in their laws. If something is technical, it is in a way giving a leeway for double interpretation. It may be interpreted one way by Mr. A or it may be interpreted the other way by Mr. B.

“ If something technical comes before the court, what we normally do is that the trial court will ask people who are experts in that field to come and testify. We rely on their testimony because they are experts in that field. Ask me anything on aeroplane,   I don’t know. Ask me to fly an airplane I am sure if they told you that that flight is going to be piloted by Tanko, I am sure you will jump out of the plane. Because it is something that is limited to technicality, my technicality is in Law.

Senate confirms Tanko Muhammad as CJN, after two hours of drilling(Opens in a new browser tab)

“Therefore, it is something that has to do with the perception of the way you think you can achieve the goals for what you want to achieve. Several of our laws are dependent on technicality.   But remember when we came, we have what is known as rules of interpretation. We resort to rules of interpretation. There are several rules of interpretation. It is through that we resolve the problem that is technically raised. That is the answer.”

Oblivious of the whether his explanations was right of wrong Senator Abaribe commended the CJN and advised him thus: “The country is in a very serious trouble and we all know and we see the courts as institution that will help us to be able to navigate out   of the difficulties we are in today. My advice is that the Supreme Court under you must continue to put Nigeria first so that we can have a country because if we don’t have a country, there would be no Senate, there would be no Supreme Court except a Somalia and we don’t want that.”

Whether the CJN was wrong or not in his explanation is now irrelevant as President has since sworn him in as the Chief Justice of Nigeria after his confirmation by the Senate.

Vanguard