The story of the injustice meted out to Rtd Justice of Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami will be told a thousand years. Even after his life and that of those who let him down must have been through. Death is inevitable; we live to die one day. But a good name lives forever. It transcends mortality.
The story of the injustice meted out to Rtd Justice of Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami will be told a thousand years. Even after his life and that of those who let him down must have been through. Death is inevitable; we live to die one day. But a good name lives forever. It transcends mortality.
In a valedictory speech to the same people who betrayed him when they should have protected him, Salami was right when he said last Thursday that he has no regrets for doing the right thing. “Having acted according to the dictate of my conscience and in the fear of Almighty God. I swore to uphold the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and to do justice to all manner of people without fear or favour; God has helped me so to do.”
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Salami can proudly look back and be proud of the good name he left on the bench. In fact it is carved in granite. Likewise, his children can walk around with their heads high, proud to be called children of a brave and honest man, who did what was right in the eyes of God. Unfortunately, for his learned brothers and sisters who danced to the tune of the executive during his travails, they will forever be haunted by this guilt that will always weigh down their conscience.
It would be recalled that on 18 August 2011, a National Judicial Council (NJC), then under the shadow of Chief Justice Aloysius Katsina- Alu, delivered a leading legal conundrum in history. At its 7th emergency meeting, convened in bad faith to circumvent the law with only 5 out of the 25 members, the uppermost judicial body in the country brazenly showed its disdain for the rule of law by suspending Hon. Justice Salami as President of the Court of Appeal and recommended to President Goodluck Jonathan that he be retired forthwith. Then I commented in my Wednesday column in the Blueprint Newspaper: “one does not need to be a lawyer or a law student to know that this is a scandalous attempt by an accused to be a judge in his own course, and recourse by a scandal-drenched Chief Justice (Katsina-Aluu) to self-help in a case of corruption leveled against him by the President of the Court of appeal.”
Power is transient. Where is Justice Katsina-Alu today? I do not understand why people still fail to comprehend the transient nature of power.
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Salami was suspended two days after the NJC, a body purportedly constituted by distinguished men and women of the highest ethics, condescendingly refused to be served notice of a case filed against it by Justice Salami, who had claimed that he was denied a fair-hearing in NJC’s probe of the matter between him and Justice Katsina-Alu.
Nigerians were distressed with such reckless defiance by the highest judicial organ. I had added: “Right thinking people are at a loss as to how the members of the NJC could even go ahead and deliberate upon a matter they knew or ought to have known was before a court of competent jurisdiction with them as respondents. The golden rule was well stated in Lagos State V Chukwuemeka Ojukwu that once a matter is before a court, all parties must desist from taking actions that will alter the status-quo and render the court’s eventual decision futile.”
One of the phony arguments or after-thoughts the members gave for refusing to be served notice of the case filed by Justice Salami was that it was not properly signed and dated. Even the greenest horn in the legal profession knows that this cannot preclude service. It is something the respondents could have gone back to the court where the summons originated from and took advantage of the “irregularity”.
In any case, Salami was eventually cleared by the same NJC after Katsina- Aluu was gone. It also recommended his reinstatement. Unfortunately, the Attorney General of the Federation, Mohammed Adoke misadvised President Jonathan against Salami’s reinstatement. Interestingly, he dodged the valedictory session. Neither did he send a representative.
It was also cowardice for the NJC, having cleared Salami of misconduct, following the recommendations of Justice Aloma Mukhtar’s committee, to have referred back his case to Jonathan for reinstatement. This was unnecessary. The NJC was competent to go ahead and implement its decision.
Justice Salami, I see you as a hero. So do majority of Nigerians. I salute your courage and effort to reposition the Judiciary as the last hope of the common man. You are a fulfilled man who dignified the bench. You had played your part and paid your dues. This writer wishes you well on the things you will turn your mind on in retirement. Though you never returned to your seat at the Court of Appeal, you did not lose the battle. You won the hearts of Nigerians. The losers are those who conspired against you. People, who ought to be honourable, refused to be honourable. In their cowardice, they sold the Judiciary to the Executive. It represents the darkest age in the history of Nigerian Judiciary. And it would continue to be a burden and wound on the conscience of those who triggered that darkness.
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