EDITORIAL: Tasks before the new CJN, Kekere-Ekun

Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun is now in the saddle as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), following the retirement of Justice Olukayode Ariwoola penultimate week. She is in an acting capacity, pending her confirmation by the Senate. Conscious of the tasks ahead, after being sworn-in, she pledged to initiate a series of reforms that would help restore public confidence in the judiciary.

The ogres staring her in the face are legion. Corruption, the most elephantine of all, manifests in different guises: bribery, the reckless issuance of ex-parte orders and perpetual injunctions, conflicting decisions by courts of coordinate jurisdictions, forum shopping and nepotism in the appointment of judicial officers. Others are apparent questionable judgements, interference in the judicial process, non-adherence to practice directions, and state capture of the judiciary. All of these have continuously led to the pervasion of the course of justice.

Nigerians talk freely about these vices, conscionable legal practitioners and even retired judges agonisingly admit their existence and urge radical overhaul. The decadence is such that politicians now mock their opponents, whom they may have swindled at the ballot to “go to court,” with the knowledge that getting justice is a Sisyphean undertaking in Nigeria.

Kekere-Ekun has inherited petitions against 27 judges, which the National Judicial Council (NJC) at its 106th meeting recommended their investigation of judicial misconduct. Sadly, what these errant ministers in the temple of justice get as punishment, if found guilty at all, is retirement with all their entitlements paid. This is a slap on the wrist that does not address the deep rot in the sector. Even in cases in which the NJC gathers sufficient evidence to warrant maximal clampdown by the court, such efforts are neutered during the government’s prosecution, through the esprit de corps of presiding judges.

This was so obvious in one recent case. The NJC had observed in its report that “Several personalities, individuals, government officials and business partners lodged funds into various accounts belonging to the Hon judge,” who is the “Director/Chief Executive Officer to a company (receiving these funds) and sole signatory” to its accounts.

In Kano, two conflicting judgements of courts of coordinate jurisdictions recently deepened the convolutions that have arisen from the tussle for the Emir of Kano. It should not have been so in a disciplined judicature. The erstwhile President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Yakubu Maikyau, in his withering outburst over this saga, asserted that it “brought utter disgrace and shame to the profession and have exposed the entire legal profession in Nigeria to public ridicule and opprobrium.” Yes, indeed!

NBA President Maikyau

Unfortunately, the country’s jurisprudential practice has long been hemmed in by this odiousness. Virtually every NBA president, who by virtue of the position is a member of the NJC, has spoken in the manner that Maikyau did. The late jurist, Kayode Eso, never kept silent about those he called “billionaire judges” until his death. These were judges for whom election petitions provided an avenue for soiling the temple of justice.

An erstwhile President of the Court of Appeal, Ayo Salami, was suspended from office after he challenged the late CJN Aloysius Katsina-Alu’s hijack of a Governorship Petition before the Sokoto branch of his court. Katsina-Alu had no such powers under the 1999 Constitution, Salami insisted. But for daring the CJN, he was retired prematurely. When these toxins cascade from the uppermost echelon of the judiciary, one wonders how a Daniel will come to judgement.

Former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola

Under former CJN Ariwoola, the apex court never ceased to baffle Nigerians with some of its weird decisions. The Supreme Court judgement in 2020, for instance, that sacked Emeka Ihedioha from office as governor of Imo State, where the number of votes cast outnumbered the total accredited voters, remains a reference in judicial confusion and standing logic on its head.

Ironically, Kekere-Ekun delivered the lead judgement in that case. The court’s judgements on how Senators Ahmed Lawan and Godswill Akpabio emerged as candidates in the 2023 senatorial elections, rank among the avalanche of incongruities on the watch of the immediate past CJN.

Godswill Akpabio

Therefore, it is absolutely difficult to erase these ugly memories from the minds of citizens in any conversation about the justice delivery system in the country, which ought to enjoy public trust, ordinarily. Lady Themis, the goddess and symbol of justice, might as well represent something unfathomable in our country, where a senator, Adamu Bulkachuwa, spoke of how he influenced the decisions of his wife, Zainab, as President of the Court of Appeal, in cases that involved his fellow senators. That was a major low point on the matter.

But in the US and UK and other climes from where our jurisprudence and democracy are derived and modelled, “corruption in a judge’s seat does not go unpunished,” Richard Pilgeri, a US prosecutor, told a judge, who presided over the case of Thomas Spargo – another judge who had attempted a $10,000 extortion in New York, in 2009. Spargo was jailed for 27 months. “Without a legal system free of impropriety, nothing works,” was how Pilgeri summed up the situation.

This is very true of Nigeria. It is the topsy-turvy in the judiciary, unremittingly orchestrated by some perverted members of the bench, bar, politicians and citizens, that accounts for the country’s economic backwardness and emergence as the global poverty capital, despite its abundant human and material resources. The National Bureau of Statistics/UNOC report that the Nigerian judiciary is the most corrupt among public agencies, and Justice Mohammad Dattijo’s valedictory lamentation that “court officials and judges are easily bribed by litigants” to delay cases or give favourable judgement, testify to a gangrene that must be excised for integrity to return to our justice system.

Consequently, the new CJN, the 23rd and the second female to hold that position, should be aware from the outset that Nigerians expect the redemption of our mangled society to begin from the judiciary. Where other segments of the society fail, the judiciary should not, as its Praetorian Guard. It is for this reason that it is seen as the “last hope of the common man.”

PREMIUM TIMES believes that it is practically impossible to eviscerate the rot in the system if the bad eggs in the judiciary – the bench and bar – escape punitive sanctions, as prescribed in our laws, by being prosecuted and jailed. If this could begin, dignity, respect and awe, which had deserted the bench and the legal profession, alongside public confidence, would be restored.

Nepotism is a vice, and not a virtue, in leadership. Kekere-Ekun should be aware of this. Her immediate predecessor, Olukayode Ariwoola, ignored this critical maxim, as he exploited his powers as the head of the NJC to appoint his son as a judge in the Federal High Court; daughter-in-law as a High Court judge in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT); and his brother as the Auditor-General of the NJC.

There is no organ within the judiciary to query such excesses and other brazen illegalities, as the silence that greeted the Katsina-Alu abuse of office evinced. This calls for concern. The CJN wields enormous powers and appoints 19 out of 23 members of the NJC. He also heads the Federal Judicial Service Commission, Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee and National Judicial Institute.

READ ALSO: CJN Ariwoola retires, laments prolonged delays in Nigerian courts

Not a few lawyers have advocated a deconstruction of this structure in the interest of the administration of justice. One of such is Chidi Odinkalu, a former executive secretary of the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC). He says, “These positions with powers, budgets and prerogatives, transform the CJN from a Judicial Figure into a biological portal for contracts, preferment and patronage.” As a result, a divestment of some of these powers makes sense.

It is sickening that the rule of law in the country has become an empty and squeaky platitude for lawyers and judges. The new CJN has a herculean task to make the Administration of Criminal Justice Act (ACJA) serve its objective of the speedy dispensation of justice. Judges, lawyers and their clients have defanged it so far. Quizzed by the Senate in 2016 on delayed justice delivery, during his confirmation hearing, retired CJN Mahmud Mohammed quipped: “The problem is with us. We don’t want cases to finish.” This is curious.

With the recent 300 per cent increase in the salaries of judicial officers and the 21 full complement of justices at the apex court, all eyes are on Kekere-Ekun on the dispensation of justice, going forward. After all, well-focused or forthright leadership changes societies and institutions for the better.