The news about the crisis trailing the recent alleged elevation or planned elevation of the President of the Court of Appeal, Honourable Justice Isa Ayo Salami, PCA, to the Supreme Court of Nigeria is not surprising. What is, rather, surprised is that politicians of various interests with their foot-soldiers in the media, NBA, civil society community, etc now have a field day, demonizing one party and canonizing the other.
The news about the crisis trailing the recent alleged elevation or planned elevation of the President of the Court of Appeal, Honourable Justice Isa Ayo Salami, PCA, to the Supreme Court of Nigeria is not surprising. What is, rather, surprised is that politicians of various interests with their foot-soldiers in the media, NBA, civil society community, etc now have a field day, demonizing one party and canonizing the other.
Regrettably, the almighty Constitution of Nigeria 1999, is now lowered and displaced, and personal interests and unsolicited interpretation of the purely administrative issue now rent the air and got elevated to the status of our Constitution. What is now the order of the day is the promotion of personal interests and counter-personal interests above the spirit and letters of our Constitution, and most importantly, the collective interests of the Nigerian public. It is near accurate to say that the current public comments and debates over the issue are being masterminded by the rightist and the leftist political divides, courtesies of their sympathetic media and other opinions. It may not be wrong, after all, to say that Honourable Justice Salami’s alleged elevation or planned elevation has an unhealthy political coloration, but the critical question is: what is his performance ratio since he took over from the distinguished Honourable Justice Umaru Abdullahi, as the Appellate Court head?
We are indisputably in the know of the fact that he inherited over 300 legislative and executive election matters in Nigeria, which arose from the 2007 armada of electoral fraud, called “2007 general elections”. And are there still pending cases arising from same? And what was the quality of the judgments delivered so far? Are there billionaire election petitions’ judges of the Appellate Court as well as from the High Courts? What about judgment delayed and justice denied? Is Honourable Justice Salami administratively and competently in-charge of the Fifteen Divisions of the Appellate Court placed under his dutiful care?
What about the CJN and his alleged ignoble roles in the Sokoto State Governorship Poll Petition, contrary to Section 246(3) of the Constitution of Nigeria 1999,(as it then was) ( it states that the finality of the governorship and legislative matters lies at the Appellate Court)? Is he competently in-charge of the NJC and his CJN position? Do we have a near-zero or peaked level of corruption in the Nigerian Judiciary under him? And how many corrupt Judges or Justices have been hammered under his leadership? Can we also vouch for the integrity of the present headships of the Federal and the State High Courts in Nigeria? If 64 court injunctions can be granted by the Nigerian Judiciary over the conduct of mere party primaries, how many will they grant over the main elections? What about our Magistrate Courts and their infamous “Holding Charge” in criminal matters and our AGF/AGs, the DPPs and their alleged Ghana-Must-Go requests from criminal suspects, in return for no-case proceedings? The stark truth is that the present dispensation of the Nigerian Judiciary is stinking. A corrupt Judge, they say, is worst than a mad man running amok with a sharp dagger in the midst of a densely populated market!
That Professor Maurice Iwu’s leadership of INEC conducted the Anambra State staggered governorship poll, where, for the first time in the Nigeria’s modern electoral midwifery, other than the disenfranchisement of a good number of the registered voters, the votes of those who voted counted, cannot save his regime from eternal damnation. And for a mere fact that two or three high profile election cases were upturned in favour of social opinions in the Southwest, even though the said verdicts were, and still are legally and technically flawed, cannot in any way invalidate the fact that the Court of Appeal in Nigeria under Honourable Justice Salami remains the most tainted among the trio of the Supreme Court, Federal/State High Courts and the Appellate Court. After all, is it not correct to say that a reasonable number of the Appellate Court Justices in Nigeria is living far beyond their statutory wages and allowances, courtesy of the black money arising from the election petitions’ matters? The racketeering syndrome as per who is to be made an election petition judge may also exist in the Nigerian Judiciary particularly at the Appellate Court.
Ordinarily, the elevation of an Appellate Court Justice or the Court’s President to the Supreme Court, whether he or she accepts it or not, is not supposed to be noisily politicized. From the available records, it is not out of place for an Appeal Court head to be so elevated, but he or she deserves to be carried along by way of inclusion and the exercise of the right of acceptance or rejection, which must be outside mischievous and parochial interests? But reducing the issue to the CJN-Appellate Court President affair is totally condemned. The Federal Judicial Service Commission and, most especially the National Judicial Council are occupied by the “wisest men” in Nigeria, yet a purely administrative issue is allowed to slip off their hands and crashed into the abyss of political and media gossipy markets.
Therefore, we are surprised at the quantum of politicization of the so-called judicial elevation. We also know that neither the CJN nor the Appeal Court President is an outlaw, that is, their offices are guided by extant Nigerian Public Service rules, as well as the Constitution of Nigeria 1999, which include rules of appointment, dismissal, promotion and elevation as well as retirement, loyalty and discipline. We recall vividly that similar ugly situations took place when the distinguished Honourable Justice James Ogebe was elevated to the Supreme Court. His elevation was grossly politicized, on the grounds that he was “compensated” for being in the electoral panel that heard and returned the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as the President, and that his elevation was to work for the return of the same late President at the Supreme Court.
Our final submission is that the trio of the CJN, the Appeal Court President and the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court has performed very abysmally, thereby, taken Nigeria and Nigerians for granted, and it may be safe to say that the nobility attached to the judiciary is, again, in deep crisis. The Nigerian judiciary is terminally sick and must be surgically operated upon before it is too late! Instead of unnecessary sentiments being quipped up by the pro and anti forces of the two senior citizens, Nigerians should rise in total condemnation of the abysmal performance of the duo and caution them to sit up or resign from their hallowed positions. The tenures of distinguished Justices Alpha Belgore/Idris Kutigi (Supreme Court), Umaru Abdullahi(Appeal Court), and Roseline Ukeje( Federal High Court) remain commendably the best since 1999.
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content1'); });
Signed:
Emeka Umeagbalasi
Chairman, BOT,Intersociety-Nigeria
08033601078
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('comments'); });
googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('content2'); });