•Death of a great jurist and intellectual leaves a great vacuum on the bench
The death of a retired Supreme Court judge, Justice Niki Tobi, is certainly a major loss to the Bar and the Bench. He was a colossus of sort, having started life as an academic. In 1976, at the University of Maiduguri where he joined others in pioneering the faculty of law, he rose to the enviable position of professor of law and dean of the faculty. Quite liberal, he found a home in Maiduguri in the North-East despite his origin traced to Delta State. He left Maiduguri in 1985, to join the bench of the Rivers State High Court where, again, he made his mark and was spotted as one who had something to offer on the higher bench.
It was no surprise in 2002, that Justice Tobi was appointed a Supreme Court judge. He brought his training, experience, knowledge and rare candour to the highest court of the land. It was a quality that had been missing since Justice Taslim Olawale Elias left as Chief Justice of Nigeria. Elias was a professor and dean of law at the University of Lagos; he became the Attorney- General of the Federation before he got appointed Chief Justice of Nigeria. Justice Tobi was expected to step into that shoe.
Did he succeed in doing that? That is a question legal historians will have to answer But, what is not in doubt were the fecundity and sagacity of the late jurist. Lawyers who appeared at the Supreme Court could not have missed his velvet voice and sound mind as he directed them to address the court on the points of law and relate cited legal authorities to their submissions. He had a fresh perspective on every issue.
Justice Tobi’s quality caught the attention of the federal authorities and, in 1999, he was appointed chairman of the panel that berthed the constitution of the fourth republic. In doing that, unlike his predecessors, he lacked the luxury of time. Gen. Abdulsalami Abubakar was in a hurry to hand over to a civilian leadership; he came into office in June 1998 and immediately committed himself to leaving in May 1999. Therefore, the constitution had to be hurriedly packaged and the lot fell on Justice Tobi. Many, today, blame the contradictions in the document on the work of the Niki Tobi panel. Some have been uncharitable in tracing the flaws and failings to what they call the insincerity of Justice Tobi pretending that he was bequeathing a people’s constitution to the nation.
In 2005, President Olusegun Obasanjo knocked at Justice Tobi’s door to chair the National Conference. Again, did he succeed, in view of the controversies that trailed the conference, its report and faith? We recall the third term controversy that dogged the Obasanjo political experiment. Should a man of Justice Tobi’s stature have accepted such assignment without examining its constitutionality and without undertaking a probe of its political undertone? Those who know him say he was not one to avoid any challenge. He was a patriot indeed.
His eight-year tenure at the Supreme Court shows him as a hardworking judge. He was a team player who made his mark in writing and delivering judgments. However, his contribution to the judgment upholding the election of the late Alhaji Umaru Yar’Adua as the president of Nigeria is regarded as blight by keen watchers of the legal landscape. The late president himself had confessed to monumental flaws in the conduct of that election and consequently pledged a far-reaching electoral reform. But, by a slim majority of four to three, the Supreme Court validated the election. Till date it has been difficult to justify the decision that the flaws proven and uncontroverted in court did not constitute a sufficient ground to invalidate the election.
All said, Justice Niki Tobi made his mark in the development of the Nigerian legal jurisprudence. He is gone but his footsteps remain visible on the sands of time.
