NJC, recused judges and anti-graft war

THE wrangle between the judiciary, particularly the National Judicial Council (NJC), and the Muhammadu Buhari presidency over the direction, not the objectives, of the anti-graft war humiliates the republic. Whether the combatants are sincere or not, or whether they mean what they say or not, they have both said they are committed to stamping out corruption from all corners of public life. However, neither that ennobling war against corruption nor yet the methodology of carrying it out has been prosecuted with the diligence, care and circumspection the situation demands. Under President Buhari, the federal government has carried on with reckless indifference and sanctimoniousness, unmindful of the wider dimensions and implications of the methods by which they hope to root out the evil. On its own, the NJC has consistently given the impression that it is more concerned about protecting the image of the judicial arm than extirpating corruption within its ranks and in the wider society.

Hamstrung by the display of mutual antagonism between the querulous government and the squeamish NJC, it is not surprising that the anti-graft war appears to have been arrested midstream. The most poignant indication of this paralysis is the matter of the suspended and recused judges accused by law enforcement and security agencies of engaging in corrupt acts. After many false starts and deep unease and contemplation, the NJC, last November, suspended eight of the judges. About eight months after the recusal of the judges, the NJC recalled six of them on June 1. The judicial body argued that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) failed to charge five of the six in court many months after their suspension, and was sloppy in appealing the acquittal of one of the six.

Despite the strident arguments of the president’s special adviser on prosecutions, Okoi Obono-Obla, and notwithstanding the wide support his arguments attracted, nor even the government’s seeming nostalgia for military tribunals to try corruption cases, it is hard to fault the NJC. It seemed the government was content with trying the cases of the suspended judges on the pages of newspapers, and was even more satisfied keeping it there in abeyance. Indeed, it was not until a week after the recall of the judges that the EFCC hurried to the court to file charges against Justice Hydiazira Nganjiwa. This prompted observers to wonder whether the federal judge would have been arraigned in court had he not been recalled together with five other judges, one of whom is a Justice of the Supreme Court.

The argument of the NJC is unambiguous. The seven-month recusal was more than enough to charge the judges in court going by the highly publicised presentation of the government’s case in the media, including, in some instances, celebrated arrests underscored by what the security services described as a sting operation. The EFCC acted mala fide by quickly charging Justice Nganjiwa in court about one week after the NJC recalled him. What was the EFCC doing for seven months? Sadly, even those who support Mr Obono-Obla’s strange logic gave the worrisome and indefensible impression that the public should be willing to wait for as long as it takes to charge the judges in court once a case had been made against them in the media. The NJC sensibly recognised that neither the rule of law nor justice, nor yet common sense, supported an endless wait. The EFCC ought to have recognised that fact itself, even though in many of the cases, the Department of State Service (DSS) was incongruously the arresting and investigating authority.

In the case of Justice Adeniyi Ademola, over which a controversy has broken out regarding whether the case is recognisably on appeal or not, again it is hard to fault the NJC. The Appeal Court confirmed to the NJC that the case was not yet before it. It was further established that while the federal prosecutors had kick-started the process of appeal, that process had not yet been consummated. However, according to the government, Justice Ademola still had a case to answer before the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). Was the NJC unaware of this fact? Indeed, could it defend its ignorance? The NJC has responded to the appeal controversy; it has a responsibility to also respond to this latest disclosure by the government. For in the eyes of the public, the government has successfully, out of court, proved the malfeasance of some of the judges, and in fact established that the judiciary is in dire need of cleansing.

On the whole, however, the squabble between the government and the judiciary over the anti-graft war is both needless and vexatious, and a reflection of the government’s ratiocinative incompetence. A painstaking consideration of the government’s approach to the war shows that the Buhari presidency was completely unprepared for the war when it inaugurated the crusade. It had hoped that making wild but unsubstantiated allegations against suspects, some of them judges, was nearly enough to secure conviction. It had also implausibly hoped that the existing judicial administration structure was competent to secure rapid convictions. Unfortunately, not only was evidence clumsily and in some cases insufficiently gathered, the poor funding of the judiciary over many decades had starved the third arm of government of the needed competent personnel and infrastructure to make the administration of justice efficient and delivery of justice fast and effortless. Two years into his tenure, the president has still not grappled with these fundamental shortcomings. Instead, his government has continued to complain and to attempt to inflame public emotions for indeterminate ends.

However, on the other hand, the NJC cannot pretend not to know the damage malfeasant judicial officers have done to the image of the judiciary, nor fail to understand how that malfeasance was procured in the judiciary. While it is true that corruption is more structural than symptomatic, thus controverting the government’s populist and lackadaisical approach to the cancer, the NJC must find a way to insulate the judiciary from the general societal rot. Rather than adopt and stick to a combative but pedestrian approach to dealing with corruption in the judiciary, it is time the government met minds with the leadership of the judiciary to find realistic ways of defining the problems and resolving them. The government’s current approach of faultfinding is counterproductive and bound to fail in the long run.

But despite the poor funding of the judiciary and its broken infrastructure, which the government must find ways of tackling rather than sermonising about, the NJC must also re-examine its methods and determine precisely where and how the judiciary strayed from the path of rectitude. The humiliation of dragging judges as high as from the Supreme Court in the mud in the fashion seen last year is so galling and humiliating to both the third arm of government and the country as a whole that it must never repeat itself. That shame should nudge the judiciary into rediscovering itself and reclaiming its lost glory. That rediscovery will, however, not be possible if the present system of appointing friends and cronies into high judicial offices persists. The character and erudition needed to sit on appellate courts, not to say on the Supreme Court in particular, was sadly not evident when some of the arrested judges ‘stung’ by the DSS made a case for themselves. They were not inspiring at all.

There are indications that the process of appointing appellate judges may be heading for some modifications, going by the determination of the Appeal Court to re-engineer the recruitment methods. However, there is suspicion that the process may neither be thorough enough nor imbued with the kind of substance required to birth real change. It is time the appointing authorities seriously eschewed sentiments and favouritism. The courts, especially the appellate courts, need thinkers and judicial innovators. More, they need men and women of courage, wit and character, men and women able to constantly renew themselves and set inspiring judicial precedence not only for Nigeria but for the sub-region and beyond. The current malaise and paralysis are simply intolerable and unsustainable.

The NJC sensibly stood up to the hubristic and insensitive approach the government adopted in tackling judicial corruption and the suspension of errant judges. Perhaps the NJC is atoning for its connivance at the shameful truncation of the career of Justice Ayo Salami by the Goodluck Jonathan government. In protecting the independence of the judiciary, the NJC must, however, never be seen to be merely defending and shielding errant judicial officers. It should indeed now go ahead to recommend to the government all that needs to be done to re-engineer the judiciary and make the delivery of justice encyclopaedic and fast. It is also time the government get off its high moralising horse and listened to the judiciary on how the justice system could best be remoulded and refitted. After all, the executive arm is not insulated from the corruption and inefficiency which it has tried unsuccessfully and vaingloriously to banish from the judiciary.