By Rotimi Fasan
ONE wouldn’t know why but Abuja again seems to be courting needless and avoidable controversy, even trouble, with its reported plan to appoint a new Chief Justice of the Federation from the Nigerian Bar.

This would be going against the age-long tradition of appointing the most senior member of the Bench to that position. There is no point trying to mend what is in good shape. ‘If it ain’t broke’, Americans would say, ‘don’t fix it’.

FILE PHOTO: BODY OF BENCHERS AT THE CALL TO THE BAR CEREMONY .

The way Buhari is being urged to go about this appointment clearly captures what Fela means when, in ‘Palava’, he sang that, ‘When trouble sleep, yanga go wake am, wetin e dey fin’/palava he dey fin’. Yes, the President would indeed be looking for ‘palava’ by this- and he may just end up with ‘palava’ like everyone else who looks for it, if he listens to those urging him on this.

As judges are very often expected to be seen and not heard, members of the bench may be too conservative to brew any trouble for the president. Indeed, the manner the trouble would emerge may not even show that it has its origin in a presidential decision gone awry, that is one based on the decision to appoint somebody not on the bench as the CJN.

This at a time when there is somebody fully qualified to ascend the saddle except, it would be interpreted, on account of his ethnicity. No, the trouble that would come from this would only help stoke the fire of resentment now manifesting in the form of militancy among those who already feel sidelined by this government, especially people of the Niger-Delta and their ‘avenging’ ilk out to make things hot for this government. I will return to this point shortly. But first to the series of missteps so far taken on similar issue by this administration. This will show why this latest plan would be a non-starter in the long run.

If there is one thing that this administration has had a tough time getting right, it is in the area of appointments generally and the nature of its appointments in terms of its national complexion in particular. Buhari took what could be considered more time than was necessary to appoint officials of his administration. He appeared confused as to how to go about it, leaving room for all kinds of speculations as to his preparedness to take office.

His critics wasted no time concluding that he was daunted by the task before him. Even when presidential assistants explained that the president needed time to select a credible team of high fliers into position, the response from their critics was that the president had many weeks after he was declared winner to plan and select members of his team.

When the first set of appointments was finally made, the announcement was coloured by controversies about how one-sided the appointments were, namely, their lack of ethnic diversity. Those appointed, almost to the last man, were northerners. Even at the best of times this would have been controversial to say nothing of it coming shortly after a bitterly-fought and an ethnically polarising election. And for a man yet to convince many of his critics and even supporters that he is not a northern hegemonist and islamist rolled into one, Buhari’s decision to make this kind of appointment at a time when ethnic sensitivity was at an all-time high- the constitution of a kitchen cabinet that was more than 90% northern was to say the least insensitive. Add to this the fact that the south-east had no representation at all and you have the recipe for distrust and suspicion about the national outlook of his administration.

Moving from this the administration took several months to constitute a cabinet of ministers, and when it did its composition was still a subject of controversy given the portfolio assigned people from certain parts of the country. In all this the administration remained truculent, insisting on the rightness of its position even when it could have been less hostile to criticisms. In this the president himself didn’t help matters, as he still doesn’t by his failure to explain many of his decisions.

Given the delay with appointments the administration wouldn’t fully take off until November 2015, which has had serious implications for both the performance of the administration and the level of progress in the rest of the country. The series of problems with the 2016 Appropriation Bill could have been either mitigated or all together avoided if a cabinet had been in place early enough.

It seems strange that President Buhari would be urged to sideline the tradition in the bench with the possible appointment of a so-called card-carrying member of his party from the bar to succeed Mahmud Mohammed whose tenure as CJN ends in November. By the order of seniority the next person in line is Justice Walter Onnoghen, an indigene of Cross Rivers State.

His appointment as CJN would make it the first time somebody from Cross Rivers State would fill that position, and the first time in three decades, precisely twenty nine years, that any southerner would be CJN. There is no better opportunity for Buhari to make a statement about his good intention to people outside the north than this. He would also be making history as the first president to appoint an indigene of Cross Rivers, a so-called minority state to the position of CJN.

Why then would the president spurn such rare opportunity to improve his own record as a true Nigerian nationalist as opposed to a sectional leader? Ill-will or a desire to ruffle the feathers of his critics for its own sake? What profound idea lies behind this ill-informed plan that could only further undermine this administration?

There is surely nothing sacrosanct about sticking rigidly to the hierarchy of seniority in the bench or anywhere else. Many times such insistence on seniority is a cover-up for mediocrity. That somebody is the most senior person in line for a position does not make them the most competent or eligible. Appointing somebody from the bar is not unprecedented either.

There have been such appointments in the past. But that was at a different time and situation. A president could take such a decision but not when it is liable to bad interpretation. It would also be difficult to convince anyone, least of all people of Cross River and the Niger-Delta that such a plan, if effected, is without malice and ill-will. President Buhari can do without the distraction of another controversial appointment.