Appeal Court to hear case on ex-CJN Onnoghen's removal from office

Former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Justice Walter Onnoghen will on Tuesday, August 20th, at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, resume his legal battle against the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) judgement that ordered his removal from office in 2019.

The suit was filed at the Court of Appeal in April 2019.

The former head of the Nigerian judiciary is praying the Court of Appeal to void and set aside the CCT judgement delivered against him on April 18, 2019, on various grounds.

In his appeal marked CA/ABJ/375 & 376 & 377/2019, Justice Onnoghen, through his lead counsel, Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, is asking the appellate court to quash his conviction primarily on grounds of lack of jurisdiction, bias, and absence of fair hearing.

With Onnoghen as the appellant, the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the sole respondent.

A notice for the hearing of the appeal, just sighted by our correspondent, is entitled “CA/ABJ/375 & 376 & 377/2019 BTW: Justice Onnoghen and FRN.”

It reads, “Please take notice that the above matter is listed for hearing on Tuesday, the 20th day of August, 2024, at 9 o’clock in the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division.”

The Code of Conduct Tribunal had in 2019 convicted Onnoghen on all six counts of breaching the Code of Conduct for Public Officers brought against him by the federal government while in office as head of the country’s judiciary.

In the lead judgement delivered by Chairman of the CCT, Danladi Yakubu Umar, he ordered the immediate removal of Onnoghen from office as CJN.

The Tribunal had also stripped him of all offices previously held, including the Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) and the Chairmanship of the Federal Judicial Service Commission.

The tribunal also ordered the forfeiture of his five bank accounts and the money in them, which Onnoghen did not declare in his asset declaration form submitted to the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB), an agency of the Federal Government.

Although Onnoghen had been on suspension since January 25, 2019, and had resigned on April 4, the tribunal nonetheless ordered his removal from office as Chief Justice of Nigeria and also as Chairman of both the National Judicial Council and the Federal Judicial Service Commission.

Dissatisfied with the CCT decision, Onnoghen in 2019 approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja with 16 grounds on why his conviction by the Tribunal should be quashed.

Among other points, he maintained that the Danladi Umar-led CCT panel erred in law and caused a miscarriage of justice by failing to decline jurisdiction to entertain the six-count charges against him.

He contended that the CCT Chairman should have recused himself from presiding over his trial.

In his seven-point reliefs, Onnoghen applied for an order setting aside his conviction as well as quashing the order for forfeiture of his assets and to discharge and acquit him of all the charges levelled against him.

Listing some particulars of error in the CCT’s verdict, Onnoghen argued that he was a judicial officer at the time the charges were filed against him on January 11, 2019, and thus could not be subjected to the jurisdiction of the lower tribunal.

“On the authority of Nganiiwa v. FRN (2018) 4 NWLR (Pt. 1609) 30: at 340. 341, only the National Judicial Council (NJC) has the power to discipline the Appellant for misconduct and not the lower tribunal.

“The lower tribunal had in the case of FRN v. Sylvester Nwali Nguta in charge No: CCT/ABJ/01/2017 delivered on January 9, 2018, affirmed the position of the Court in FRN v. Nganiiwa and dismissed the charges, acquitting and discharging Justice Ngwuta, a Judicial Officer subject only to the discipline of the National Judicial Council.

“The lower tribunal has no jurisdiction over serving judicial officers such as the appellant, save the National Judicial Council.

“The Motion on Notice dated January 14, 2019, challenging jurisdiction ought to be granted in all material particulars as it purports to save the lower tribunal from a needless futile exercise.

“The lower tribunal erred in law when it dismissed the Appellant’s application seeking the chairman to recuse himself from further proceedings on the ground of real likelihood of bias and thus occasioned a miscarriage of justice.

“The Appellant has alleged that the chairman of the lower tribunal is biassed towards him due to open remarks in the tribunal as well as the manner in which the proceedings were conducted.”

Contrary to the CCT finding, Onnoghen said he did not admit to the non-declaration of assets from 2005 as a Justice of the Supreme Court, adding that he only stated that he did not declare in 2009 as required because he forgot.

Onnoghen challenged the order for the confiscation of his assets on the grounds that the assets were legitimately acquired, contrary to the provisions of paragraph three of Section 23 of the CCB Act, which only permits the seizure of such assets “if they were acquired by fraud.”

He faulted the failure of the prosecution to present the petitioner, Denis Aghanya, before the tribunal, whose petition led to the charges against him.

Onnoghen maintained that all the allegations brought against him “constitute no offence and should therefore not have formed the basis for his conviction.”

The former CJN asked the Court of Appeal to issue orders against the CCT judgement, including that the tribunal lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the case and that its Chairman should have recused himself from the proceedings.

Onnoghen therefore applied for an order setting aside his conviction and another one setting aside the order for the forfeiture of his assets made by the Tribunal, as well as to discharge and acquit him from the charges.