The recent lamentation by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, who threatened to sanctioned the Chief Judges of six states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) over conflicting court orders that recently emanated from their courts is apposite and timely. Lamenting the embarrassment the spate of conflicting court orders had caused the judiciary; the CJN warning the erring judges to immediately stop “the nonsense.” A statement by the National Judicial Council (NJC) spokesperson, Soji Oye, described a “visibly angry” CJN reading the riot act to the Chief Judges of the FCT, Rivers, Kebbi, Cross River, Jigawa, Anambra, and Imo states, where the controversial court orders emanated from. “A damage to one jurisdiction is damage to all. We must therefore put an end to indiscriminate granting of ex-parte orders, conflicting judgements or rulings occasioned by forum-shopping,” the CJN said.
To be of good or bad character is of course, a personal choice wholly intrinsic to a man. But for members of the judiciary, especially judges to whom much has been given; and from whom much is expected; the personal character in private and public lives of persons deemed fit and proper to sit in judgement over others should be beyond reproach. It is not for nothing that in all civilized societies, a judge is “Lord” or “Justice.” The judiciary after all, is supposed to be the incorruptible bastion of justice. Unfortunately in Nigeria, the judiciary has fallen short of this lofty expectation in recent times.
The case for uprightness in the Nigerian judicial system has been long made and continues to be made, indicating that there is more than enough wrong with the professional integrity, intellectual acumen, and dispensation of justice to warrant widespread public worry. Unequal application of the provisions of the law such that the law is now a disappointing respecter of persons; frivolous use of judicial discretion and recourse to legal technicalities; the approval of plea bargain which former CJN Justice Dahiru Musdapher once declared alien to the nation’s laws; outrageous rulings that, in effect, prevent other law enforcement agencies from performing their duties; and unwarranted lateness to; or absenteeism from court; delay – and, therefore, denial of justice, among others are the hallmarks of today’s courts.
This is indeed a pity.
Justice Tanko has warned the State Chief Justices to henceforth refrain from any assumption of jurisdiction in matters involving parties already before another court; in order to protect the court from lawyers that are out to forum-shop and work in tandem with all their Judges to salvage the image of the judiciary. The outright dismissal, forced retirement, and warning meted out to some judges high and low for various acts unbecoming of their exalted offices in recent times illustrates the depth of the problem.
The judiciary has shamelessly joined the fray of the political crisis rocking political parties in the country by indiscriminately granting orders and counter-orders as requested by the different warring sides. For instance, such orders were issued concerning the choice of the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) for the forthcoming election in Anambra State. Desperate politicians have traversed courtrooms in different parts of the country to obtain conflicting orders on the APGA’s governorship candidates as Chukwuma Soludo, fended off challenges for his party’s ticket from Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji and Prince Nicholas Ukachukwu.
In another eyesore on the judiciary that reinforced Nigeria’s image as a country with dysfunctional institutions where bizarre things can happen, three courts in different states issued counter-orders about the office of the national chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in just one week. On August 24, a Rivers State High Court in Port Harcourt restrained Prince Uche Secondus from parading himself as PDP national chairman. Three days later, on August 27, a Kebbi State High Court in Birnin-Kebbi restored Secondus as PDP national chairman. A day after Secondus’ reinstatement, another High Court in Calabar, Cross River State, issued an interim order restraining him from resuming office as PDP chairman. According to the NJC statement, the three judges who granted these conflicting ex parte orders had been invited to appear before the NJC “to show cause why disciplinary action should not be taken against them.”
It is not the first time that a CJN is publicly chastising his colleagues and collaborators for compromising the judiciary. A prominent case in point was the absolute and intolerable mess generated by a former CJN who had spat with the then Justice of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami and which smeared not their persons alone but also the reputation of the judiciary as an institution and independent arm of government. The case is yet to be resolved in what many would consider the best interest of justice. And the fact that integrity-deficiency could be an issue at the highest level of the judiciary is not only disappointing, it is saddening. The message from that mess seemed to be that, the temple of justice, after all, is not beyond desecration.
The improprieties in the judiciary constitute a damning comment on both the Bench and the Bar. Judges are both lawyers and judges. And legal practitioners are also as much to blame. Not a few lawyers including Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) are complicit in the misdemeanors or crimes against administrators of justice. In a classic case of washing their proverbial dirty linen in public, former Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) President, Okey Wali, once admitted publicly that: “some judges take bribes,” but he was honest to add that, “lawyers cannot go around calling ourselves learned friends and learned colleagues and brethren if we condone or wink at judicial bribery.” Who are those asking for adjournments and interlocutory injunctions as tactics to delay the course of justice? Lawyers do. Who negotiate plea bargain even in full awareness that it is alien to the laws of the land? And who in many cases facilitate the bribing of judges to pervert the course of justice? Lawyers do.
Some time ago, at the swearing-in of new SANs, then CJN, Aloma Mariam Mukhtar said unless laws are administered “fairly, rationally, consistently, impartially, and devoid of any improper influences, a society cannot operate under the rule of law.” Again, with respect to personal character and choice, it can only be asserted that judges and lawyers have more than just a little challenge on their hands. Even as CJN Tanko points out the ills involving state Chief justices, the NBA must search itself and continually cleanse itself. But the case must nevertheless be made for other suggestions that can strengthen the administration of justice. To this end, appointments to the Bench should be widened to include persons from the academia who are, first and foremost, of fit and proper character.
The duty falls upon every segment in the polity to support in its own way, the strengthening of the judiciary. It is appropriate to state that this is in the interest of all Nigerians and the continued well-being of the nation because, as a former president of the United States, Andrew Jackson once said, “all the rights secured to the citizens under the constitution are worth nothing and a mere bubble, except guaranteed to them by an independent and virtuous judiciary.” And to sit in that Temple of Justice, only the best in character, integrity and good intellect, along with other virtues, will do. In the words of former Supreme Court Justice, Anthony Aniagolu, to the Bench in October 2007: “of all the professions, you are the ones that most directly represent God on earth, because God is justice and so, by delivering justice on people, you are sitting on His throne… So you must be careful how you deliver justice.”
