By Emeka Umeagbalasi

On February 24, 2011, the leadership of International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law, a civil society group, wrote the deputy chairman of the NJC, who is the next most senior serving Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, in accordance with Paragraph 20(b) of Part One of the Third Schedule to the Constitution of Nigeria, 1999, as amended, which provides for the office of the deputy chairman of the NJC, possibly to ensure that the CJN, as chairman of the NJC does not become a judge in his own case if accused of any misconduct.

The letter was sequel to the unhealthy events at the top hierarchy of the Nigerian Judiciary, which have continued to give us a restless moment. The serious allegations are categorized into three, and they are as follows: 1.that the CJN, Justice Aloysius Katsina Alu, allegedly asked the Court of Appeal President, Justice Isa Ayo Salami to compromise the Sokoto State Governorship Election Judgment sometime in 2010; 2. that the CJN lied over his real age of retirement, which he allegedly said would be due by August 28, 2011, instead of May 28, 2011 as alleged by those accusing him; and 3. that the President of the Court of Appeal, compromised both his hallowed office and the Osun and Ekiti States’ Governorship Election Judgments through a series of unethical communications between him and some senior counsel representing the Action Congress of Nigeria on one hand, and between him and some named chieftains of the Party on the other as well as an allegation that himself and other members of the appellate panels, including Justice Adamu Jauro, a member of the three election appeals’ panels constituted by the PCA, accepted bribes in the course of their constitutional duties, thereby perverting the course of justice and breaching their constitutional oaths of office and allegiance.

Sources of the allegations: Allegation number one is contained in a statement on oath, made by the PCA in the now withdrawn suit he filed against the CJN before a Federal High Court. Allegation number two is available at open sources, including the visual, audio-visual and written media. The Supreme Court has already noted this development, having reacted on it recently. Allegations number three are contained in the petitions forwarded by the Acting Chairman of the PDP in Osun State, Southwest Nigeria, Otunba Sunday Ojo-Williams and Chief Segun Oni (the court-declared former unlawful governor of Ekiti State), to NJC and the Presidency. We reproduced and attached in the letter, the said letters from Chiefs Oni and Ojo-Williams. We also petitioned the NBA over the SANs named.

We are alarmed at how our Hallowed Temple of Justice has turned into a temple of termites, particularly in recent times. It appears that some, if not many of Justices in the hallowed Bench have become the Lords of Judicial Injustices, propelled by corruptive tendencies. To the extent that many say, it has become an act of shamelessness in the community of Nigerian Judges to openly negotiate prices over judgments reserved by them, especially the ones that have to do with politically sensitive matters. It is the believe of many, if not most Nigerians, that judgments’ prices are now negotiated at the dinner tables and in expensive hotel rooms, and that sometimes, if not most times, Nigerian Judges do the negotiations themselves. “While the bribe-monies are negotiated in tens and hundreds of millions and billions of Naira, they are channeled to their “termite-consumers” through unconventional means, including changing them into high profile foreign currencies to avoid conventional detections”, said a school of observatory thought. It may be correct to say that if a survey on “the means of social living” is conducted among Nigerian Judges today, over 80 percent of them will be found living far beyond the scopes of their statutory earnings (wages or salaries and allowances), thereby confirming the existence of illicit billionaire-court judges in Nigeria. It may further be correct to say that “the beginning of wisdom” for a Nigerian Judge, nowadays, is recourse to unconventional judicial activism. A corrupt judge, they say, is more dangerous than a mentally-ill adult who runs amok with a sharp dagger in the midst of a densely populated market.

Therefore, for the fact that the NJC has not done enough in mitigating this hybrid cancer is giving us a restless moment. How are we sure that the Nigerian Judiciary has not become the most corrupt Judicial Arm among other judicial arms in Africa and the world or among the three arms of government in same?. What worries us deeply is the kid-glove with which corruption regime in the Nigerian Judiciary is being treated by the NJC. Also the level of politicization and “ethnicization” of these serious issues is very alarming. To Southwest-based media, pro-democracy, human rights, ethnic nationalities and jurisprudential activists, the PCA is a “living saint”, whereas the CJN is a “living demon”. And to locals domiciling where the CJN hails from, he should be “beatified” while living. Instead the NJC arresting these ugly trends, reverse appears to be the case. Not minding enormous powers inherent in the confines of the NJC, coupled with the fact that among all agencies created by the Constitution of Nigeria 1999 (as amended), the NJC is the most enlarged and peopled by “ Solomonic Apostles”, yet things are still falling apart very dangerously.