The date was Sunday, May 21, 2017. The venue was the Methodist Church of Nigeria, Abuja diocese. The occasion was a no doubt well deserved thanksgiving service held for the new Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Onnoghen. The man who now sits at the apex of the county’s judiciary certainly has so much to thank God for not least of all his elevation to his present enviable status. Speaking during the service, the CJN said “I thank Nigerians for attending this event. It is supposed to be a personal thing between and my God but I have no hiding place. I thank God for fulfilling this His promise to me”. I sincerely wish the CJN had stood his ground and offered his gratitude to God for his appointment in a more very private manner. For the concept of thanksgiving in most cases has been bastardized and pulverized into just another meaningless Nigerian ritual. In any case, the best gratitude that the CJN can offer the God he serves in my view is to preside over the judiciary with integrity and credibility as well as help to mid-wife the birth of a ‘born again’ justice system for the country shorn of the current avoidable debilitating delays, distractions and pecuniary perversions that provide wings for corruption to soar higher and higher beyond the reach of justice.
What I find rather disturbing, however, is that the CJN utilized the opportunity of the thanksgiving service to mount a stout defence of the judiciary rather than send a strong message to both judicial officers and members of the public who try to procure favourable judgements from courts that it will not be business as usual under him. He lamented that the judiciary is under threat because some members of the sacred temple of justice were being investigated and accused of corrupt practices by agents of the Federal Government without giving them an opportunity to be heard. It is my take that the judiciary is the sole cause of any obloquy it may have attracted to itself even though I agree with the CJN that some of these agencies have been highhanded, insensitive, unprofessional and overzealous in the way they have sought to combat what they consider to be corruption in the judicial arm of government.
The 82nd National Judicial Council (NJC) meeting held on May 31st and June 1st, the NJC under Onnoghe’s Chairmanship recalled five judges who had earlier been suspended when the Directorate of State Services )(DSS) invaded their residences alleging various acts of infractions of the law against them. The NJC is of the view that no case had been made against the judges. Out of the eight of the judicial officers tainted by the DSS raid, and who were suspended from office at the request of the Attorney General of the federation, Mallam Shehu Malami (SAN) pending the conclusion of investigations, the NJC avers and rightly too that only three had been charged to court – Justice N.S. Ngwuta of the Supreme Court, Justice A.F. Ademola of the Federal High Court and Justice Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia also of the Federal High Court. Justice Adeniyi Ademola’s case has since been discharged and he has been acquitted of all charges against him.
The NJC may rightly claim that it cannot wait indefinitely for the anti-graft agencies to get their acts right and charge all the judges to court in accordance with the legal process. This is particularly because the NJC claims that there has been a backlog of cases that have been lying unattended to in the affected judges’ courts for the last eight months. The NJC has a point there. An already cumbersomely slow judicial process can ill afford to be further bogged down by unheard cases accumulating in courts of judges who have been indicted by the security and anti-graft agencies but are yet to be convicted in any court of law. It is not impossible that the caution and meticulousness of the anti-graft agencies in pursuing the matter of the judges is due to their perception that it will be easier for the proverbial camel to pass through the eye of the needle than for a judicial officer to be convicted in the context of the extant judicial system.
Interestingly, the President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Mallam A.B. Mahmud (SAN), which had also firmly called for the suspension of the affected judges, is now singing a different tune. According to Mahmud, “This situation is completely unsatisfactory and unacceptable. The NBA calls on the government to terminate the investigations against those judges and to enable them resume work as judicial officers”. I think the CJN, the NJC, which he leads and the NBA are all looking at this issue as a purely legal and technical one. It is not. The issue of the suspended but now recalled judges is more fundamentally a moral one. On the psychological plane, it is difficult to understand how an accused person will stand in court with confidence in the integrity of a judge he considers morally leprous to preside over his or her case.
At the time of the shocking DSS raid on the residences of some judges after midnight on October 8, 2016, this column was one of those which railed vehemently against what I perceived a gross violation of law and due process as well as a bid by the executive to intimidate and emasculate the judiciary. However, the discovery of humongous funds in diverse currencies in the residences of the judges, amounting to about N271.7 million was a great shock. It is surprising that in the Justice Adeniyi Ademola case, for instance, the court was only interested in establishing if there was any link between the huge amounts of cash found in his residence and any cases before him. The judge was simply not interested in how the judge acquired the money and why it was kept in a private residence out of formal monetary channels. After all, a judge’s house is neither a bank nor a bureau de change.
Because of the skewed nature of its own key appointments leading to the widespread perception of the Buhari administration as essentially pro-north, the administration could not but confirm Justice Onnoghe as CJN being the most senior Judge at the apex court. That course of action no matter how well meaning would have raised an unprecedented uproar particularly in the South-South. It is not too late, however, for the CJN to rise up to the onerous challenge history has thrust on him. That is to take more urgent and effective steps to stamp corruption out of the judiciary. If he does not lead the process of self-cleansing from within the judiciary, overzealous security and anti-graft agencies will be there to do it for them without grace, mercy or pity; security outfits that would not mind bringing the entire judicial edifice down on everybody’s head. More importantly, perceived judicial complacency and complicity in shielding its members from facing the law for pecuniary malfeasance may arouse a public uprising and catalyze a chain of events whose end no one can predict.(Apologies to the late Chief Anthony Enahoro).
Odu’a : Why corporate governance matters
The present governors of the South-West states deserve commendation for the new lease of life given to the Odu’a Group of companies since the emergence of Mr Adewale Raji as the company’s Group Managing Director since in 2014. In the first pace, the new GMD emerged through a highly competitive and rigorous process. Secondly, the governors have given the Raji-led Executive management committee the autonomy to operate as a business without undue partisan interference thus engendering higher corporate governance standards.
The result has been improved profitability. Under Raji, the Group’s audited accounts showed that its Profit Before Tax increased from N378 million to N597 million in 2015 which made it possible for shareholders to be paid dividends of N167 million and N194 million respectively as dividends for the 2014 and 2015 financial years. It is believed that the synergy between the new Chairman of the Odu’a Board, Chief Segun Ojo, representing Ondo State, will help accelerate the process of fully rejuvenating and invigourating the company to play its role as the Special Purpose Vehicle to drive the objective of achieving greater South West economic integration as decided by owner state governors. The years 2009 and 2013 before the assumption of office of the current GMD, witnessed a near stagnant revenue performance of 3% decline and decline of 36% in Profit Before Tax making it impossible for the company to declare any dividends for the period. Chief Segun Ojo holds degrees in Economics and statistics, retired meritoriously from the Ondo State public service and had previously served on the Boards of Nigerite and Lagos Airport Hotel.
