By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
In January 1993, Ibrahim Babangida was Nigeria’s army ruler. He was supposedly within the final yr of an interminable transition on the finish of which he promised handy over energy to an elected civilian administration. Moshood Abiola was actively canvassing to inherit that mantle. As Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Mohammed Bello was in his fourth yr on the apex of the system for resolving disputes between Abiola and Babangida in that technique of transition from army to civil rule. He had been CJN since 1987. On the time, Abiola was additionally Nigeria’s most influential newspaper writer beneath the Harmony Group. One of many titles printed by the Harmony Group was a weekly journal known as African Harmony. Its editor was Bayo Onanuga.
The earlier month, in December 1992, Bayo Onanuga’s African Harmony ran a canopy beneath the title: ‘‘Justice Mohammed Bello: Kick him out now! Attorneys demand.” Basically, the story alleged that army ruler, Ibrahim Babangida, had bribed the Justices of the Supreme Courtroom led by CJN, Mohammed Bello, with presents of unique Mercedes Benz automobiles. On the time, Mercedes Benz produced essentially the most well-known luxurious model of automobiles in Nigeria.
This story wouldn’t have amounted to a lot however for what adopted. Shortly after New Yr in 1993, 9 of the Justices of the Supreme Courtroom instructed Frederick Rotimi Alade (FRA) Williams, the doyen of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), to file a case earlier than the Excessive Courtroom of Lagos State in opposition to the Harmony Group, African Harmony, and its editor, Bayo Onanuga, claiming that the story had defamed them. The Harmony Group instructed stormy petrel, Gani Fawehimin, to signify them. On the Ikeja Division of the Excessive Courtroom of Lagos the place the case was tried, Samuel Omotunde Ilori, who would later rise to grow to be the ninth Chief Choose of Lagos, presided.
This case had many sub-plots. It turned out, as an illustration, that Chief Williams’s youngest son, Tokunbo, who was shortly thereafter to grow to be a SAN himself, was married to the daughter of the presiding decide, Olusola. When Gani Fawehinmi requested the decide to disqualify himself from the case, he declined, describing the request as “unprecedented” and an invite to “an abdication of his sacred obligation as a judicial officer.”
The Secretary to the Authorities of the Federation (SGF) on the time, Alhaji Aliyu Mohammed, the Wazirin Jema’a, was a witness within the case. In cross analyzing him, Gani Fawehinmi requested for his {qualifications}. Reluctantly, the SGF ventured that he was the proud holder of a Lecturers Grade 2 certificates, in response to which Gani spat out (to predictable courtroom mirth) “Trainer’s Grade Two certificates, and he rose by the ranks to grow to be the SGF!”
Finally, the case was settled when Abiola elected to apologise to the Supreme Courtroom Justices, who then instructed Chief Williams to withdraw it. In response, Bayo Onanuga resigned as editor of Chief Abiola’s African Harmony.
The underlying challenge in that case, nonetheless, was judicial independence and integrity. 32 years in the past, it was an affront to the independence and integrity of judges to recommend that they may very well be impressed with presents of automobiles or suggest that they had been within the payroll of political workplace holders. At this time, it’s totally different. Senior judicial figures flaunt their propinquity to politicians and depend on that to subvert established rungs of authority amongst judges and between courts within the judicial hierarchy. It’s now de rigeur for politicians to ply judges with automobiles.
Divining how the nation bought to this isn’t that tough though it’s not practically as vital as understanding after we did so.
When Mohammed Bello retired as CJN in 1995, Mohammed Lawal Uwais succeeded him. Justice Uwais was one of many justices affronted by the claims about gathering a automotive from the troopers in 1992. Though Uwais effectively understood that “army rule had a corrosive impact” on the judiciary and had not made a lot of an effort to disguise their marketing campaign to cut back the heads of the judiciary to the standing of beggars earlier than the troopers, he was nonetheless not ready to cede a lot floor to them on questions of non-public and institutional integrity. Till his retirement in June 2006, the spectacle of politicians publicly gifting automobiles to judicial officers was not a lot a part of Nigerian public life.
All that was the change beneath his successors. In impact, this enterprise of the judges being lowered to beggars for Sub-City Utility Autos (SUVs) has all eventuated in lower than twenty years. It’s tough now to hint precisely when this alteration started. It appear seemingly, nonetheless, that the index case was – as with many issues in Nigeria – Lagos State. There are ideas, on the time of writing tough to confirm, that the follow of lacing judicial workplace with presents of political housing and transport was quietly in place earlier than 2007.
Nevertheless, a major second for coverage functions occurred within the first week of October, 2007 when freshly minted Governor of Lagos, Babatunde Raji Fashola, SAN, offered 18 automobiles to Magistrates in Lagos State. Every day Champion reported the presentation the day after it occurred beneath the caption “Lagos Authorities Dashes 18 Automobiles to Magistrates.” In presenting the automobiles, Governor Fashola declared: “Our dedication to constantly enhance the welfare bundle and situations of service of judicial officers within the state locations a reciprocal demand on magistrates to show professionalism, integrity and above all a superb work ethic.”
In fact, Magistrates Courts are state courts and subordinate ones at that. They’re inferior to the Excessive Courtroom. However the significance of this second was hardly misplaced on the politicians and the general public. On the state stage, the Judicial Service Fee oversees the work of Magistrates. The Chief Choose of the state heads the JSC. On the federal stage, that position belongs to the CJN. The JSC additionally controls the price range of the magistracy. The problem was not that the federal government desired to uplift the wellbeing of magistrates. It was that it selected to take action by a public presentation of automobiles by the governor for his or her “welfare”. The identical purpose might have been achieved if the JSC acquired the price range to be administered for exactly that goal.
If the governor selected not to take action, it might have been as a result of he desired larger say within the administration of the funds or he didn’t belief the hierarchy of the judiciary to handle it correctly if it had been given to them. It might, after all, be a matter of trigger and impact between these two elements. Giving credence to this, former Justice of the Supreme Courtroom, Ejembi Eko publicly accused heads of courts in 2024 of “vandalisation of the judiciary price range” however the truth that they had been in command of heads of courts in Nigeria managed “monumental budgetary assets.”
There have been many issues about that occasion in Lagos in 2007 that ought to have warranted consideration. The governor concerned was a lawyer and SAN and the state concerned was seen as one which set developments in Nigeria. But, when this occurred in 2007, most individuals missed each the occasion and its significance. The variety of automobiles bought by governors for the judiciary at numerous ranges within the 18 years since then has gone off the charts. Hopefully, the judges are in a greater state for it as a result of, fairly clearly, the courts usually are not.
It occurs that the NJC Tips governing the appointment of judges requires as a precondition that each appointment spherical needs to be preceded by “proof of satisfactory Capital vote provision within the related authorized Funds for the Superior Courtroom of File involved.” In different phrases, earlier than judges are appointed, the NJC requires proof from the pinnacle of the court docket system involved that there are ample funds to handle things like each automobiles and housing for them. If politicians thereafter ply the judges with automobiles and different blandishments whereas the NJC appears to be like away, it’s not tough to determine what is occurring.
A lawyer and a trainer, Odinkalu may be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tufts.edu
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