• Home
• Columnist
• Videos
• Artist
  • Musicians
  • Actors
  • Comedians
• Notable Nigerians
• Legend Dies
• Articles
  • Nigeria Articles
• Photos
• Submit Article

The image and credibility of the Nigerian judiciary suffer a setback as the two of the country’s most prominent judicial officers battle each other

The battle is unprecedented in the Nigerian Bench, one that is threatening the image of the judiciary. For over a year, Katsina-Alu, chief justice of Nigeria, CJN, and Isa Ayo Salami,  president, Court of Appeal, PCA, the two most high ranking men in the Bench, had been locked in a tango over the decisions of the appellate courts. First, it was on the 2007 governorship election and the 2008 rerun in Sokoto State and the verdicts of other justices of the Appeal Court which removed the governors of the People’s Democratic Party in Ekiti and Osun states and replaced them with those of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN.

Although the two top-notch of the judiciary are billed to retire soon - Katsina-Alu is set to quit office on August 29, and Salami two years from now – they refused to sheathe their swords. They fought each other to a standstill. But on August 18, the feud claimed its first casualty. Whereas Salami had gone to court, seeking declarations that the National Judicial Council, NJC, had no right to investigate the petitions against him and that the outcomes of the exercise were perverse, the Council wrote President Goodluck Jonathan, recommending his compulsory retirement for misconduct. Promptly, the president on Sunday, August 21, suspended the embattled judge.

In a statement, Reuben Abati, special adviser to the president on media and publicity, said his principal relied on the NJC letter dated August 18, asking him to sack Salami to exercise the powers conferred on him by Section 238 (4) of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria to suspend the judge. He, thereafter, appointed Dalhatu Adamu, the presiding judge of the Sokoto division of the Court of Appeal and next in rank to Salami, as acting president of the court.

The decision to suspend Salami reverberated across the land. It immediately put the Bench and Bar at war. While some lawyers believed that the vacuum created by Salami’s suspension must be filled, others said the embattled judge must fight for his right. In the former group is Tayo Oyetibo, senior advocate of Nigeria, SAN. “What I am aware of is that Justice Adamu was appointed as acting president of the Court of Appeal until the resolution of the problem. The office of the President of the Court of Appeal is too important to be left in vacuum. The suspension created a vacuum which needed to be filled,” he was quoted to have said.

“He (Salami) has taken the matter to court and he (Salami) is entitled to challenge his suspension in court and therefore, one cannot comment on that. The suspension is a fact which has happened, which created a vacuum and that vacuum has to be filled because there are so many statutory functions which needed to be performed by the President of the Court of Appeal. So, there is need for that office to be occupied by somebody. So, it cannot be left vacant,” he added.

But Itse Sagay, a professor of Law and SAN, told Newswatch that it was very sad that while President Jonathan benefited from the proper application of the constitution in his attempt to become acting president when the late President Umaru Yar’Adua was hospitalised in Saudi Arabia in 2010, he has turned his back on it this time. “Now a group of people have behaved in a lawless and unconstitutional manner and he has given his imprimatur on such unconstitutionality and illegality. It is very sad because it looks as if he is not looking back to see how he managed to survive the crisis. Now, it has come for him to enforce the constitution in like manner in a judicial matter and he has let everybody down,” the erudite lawyer said.

Sagay was astonished at the NJC members’ style. “Salami has filed an action to restrain them from taking any further steps on the matter. In spite of being aware of that, the NJC went ahead and recommended that Salami should be suspended and removed. That is an act of lawlessness. It is shameful given the fact that these people are senior judicial officers.”

He revealed that few people were involved in the plot. Aside the CJN who orchestrated everything, only five people were involved. President of the Customary Court of Appeal was said to have presided over the meeting of the NJC as if they were to discuss family headship and things customary courts are concerned with. “If you should go through all the facts of this crisis, the only person whose guilt was established but not punished is Katsina-Alu, the CJN. It was established that he illegally and unconstitutionally interfered in the Court of Appeal case in Sokoto governorship election over which he has no jurisdiction. All of his friends who have now ganged up to try to remove Salami admitted that. But he wasn’t punished for it. Nothing was recommended against him. The NJC merely said that he carried out his unconstitutional act in good faith. So, you can have good faith in doing something wrong and that would be alright,” Sagay said.

The disarray in the judiciary also involved top judicial officers setting a trap for the number two man in this arm of government. In a letter of August 9, and signed by M.A. Bello, acting chairman of NJC, Salami was asked to “apologise in writing to Katsina-Alu and the National Judicial Council within one week.” Sagay said if Salami had apologised for what he did not do, he would have admitted that he did it. “NJC is not a judicial body. It is an administrative body and has no jurisdiction or competence to determine whether an oath is false. Only the court can decide that. Because, if it is discovered that you lied under an oath, it is a criminal offence for which you can be sentenced. Katsina-Alu himself, in the case of Atiku Abubakar, was the one who laid it down that it is only a properly constituted court that can decide whether a person is guilty of an offence. Now, an administrative body which he (Alu) is involved in setting up either directly or indirectly is now finding Salami guilty of an offence which only a court can determine,” Sagay said.

But rather than apologise, Salami went to court to decide whether he is guilty of perjury or not.  Sagay said the NJC was aware that it had committed an offence and being certain that if the thing had gone through the court, the Council members would have been exposed and the innocence of Salami determined, it rushed in regardless of the fact that the case was in court, contemptuously and in a very uncivilised manner purportedly suspended him and recommended to the president to have him removed. “It is all political,” he emphasised.

Worried by the dimension the war between the CJN and PCA had taken, Joseph Daudu, SAN, and president of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, quickly wrote the National Executive Committee of the Association before its pre-conference meeting which began on August 22, in Port Harcourt, that the NJC’s suspension of Salami was sub judice. “It is a matter of great concern and shame that a judicial organisation of the calibre of the NJC can ride roughshod over the processes of a court of law. The implication for the Nigerian judicial process is catastrophic. If not remedied, we are witnessing the slide into anarchy and lawlessness which history will record as having been fired up by the judiciary. As part of the legal profession, we shall not sit idly and watch our profession ridiculed and brought into disrespect in the public domain,” he said.

Daudu was not done yet. He considered the shift forward in the date of the swearing-in ceremony of 30 new SANs from September 19, to August 26, as tardy and an affront to the Bar because it was the date fixed for the association’s conference communiqué, press conference and closing ceremonies. “The new SANs are members of the NBA who ought to be with members of their profession at this point in time. I know as a matter of fact and record that September 19, 2011, has earlier been selected as the date for the swearing-in ceremony. It is an appropriate date as it is traditional to swear in new senior advocates at the opening ceremony of the new legal year and we understand that the date marks the beginning of the 2012 legal year,” he told his colleagues.

Daudu’s observations and recommendations polarised the meeting. But in the end, the NEC ordered the NBA’s five members in the NJC – Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, Daudu, SAN, O.C.J. Okocha, Emmanuel Toro, SAN and Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN - to withdraw from the body ahead of the annual general conference of the association which began on  Monday, August 22, in the Rivers State capital.

Also, NBA’s NEC asked the 30 lawyers approved by the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee as worthy of being conferred with the rank of SAN to boycott the investiture ceremony. Similarly, none of the association’s members must grace the occasion slated for Friday, August 26. The committee noted that since Salami had instituted an action against the NJC and 10 others seeking orders that the setting up of an investigation committee violated his right to fair hearing, among others, it was wrong for the NJC to suspend him for refusing to apologise to the CJN and NJC as directed by the latter on August 9, in a letter signed by M.A. Bello, acting chairman of the Council.

When the NBA conference kicked off, it was obvious that the battle line was drawn. The association berated President Jonathan for breaching due process and the rule of law from which he benefitted greatly last year in his attempt to become acting president. Daudu noted: “We must point out regrettably that two hours after our resolutions were made public, the president and commander-in-chief of the Armed Forces appointed Justice Dalhatu Adamu as acting president of the Court of Appeal. Whether the decision to appoint and subsequent announcement was coincidental is not important here. What is significant is that once again, the president has lost a clear opportunity to range himself on the side of due process and the rule of law.”

And he added: “An efficient and incorruptible judiciary will guarantee a vibrant, just and egalitarian society. On the other hand, a crooked, corrupt and inefficient judiciary will promote disunity, insecurity, anarchy and strife in the polity. Be it noted that no person is born a judge; his initial appointment is from the bar. Lawyers who ply their trade in court are acknowledged as ministers in the temple of justice. The bar and bench, therefore, have a symbiotic relationship. The relationship in reality ought not to be solely mutually beneficial; it must be principally beneficial to the society at large. The Bar cannot continue to take the blame for a situation that we are not responsible for. After all, we are veritable stakeholders in the justice sector. Our withdrawal from the National Judicial Council does not mean that we shall sit helplessly with our chin in hand. The Nigeria project is far too important for us to resign ourselves to utter helplessness. We shall now engage the system proactively borrowing a leaf from progressive bars like the Pakistani Bar Association. We are resolved to confront any form of lawlessness be it executive, judicial or legislative.” The NBA said it would rejoin the NJC once it was reformed.

The judiciary war at the Port Harcourt front came to a climax when Mohammed Adoke, attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice, who represented President Jonathan took the floor to address the NBA. Instead of getting applause, he was booed severally by his colleagues. As the minister began talking about disunity in the bar and the judiciary, his voice was drowned by the more than 5,000 lawyers who were present at the conference hall.

Nnoruka Udechukwu, SAN, said it would be difficult for the judiciary to recover from the ongoing war but that the NBA must remain resilient. “It is unfortunate that this is coming from the level of the NJC, therefore, it is goodbye to the stability of judicial institution. For a long time, the institution has been progressively debased by some elements who are bent to rock the boat. It is a pity that this could happen in the first instance,” he argued.

While Adoke was under fire in the hall, a pressure group under the aegis of Lawyers of Conscience and Civil Society Coalition, LOCCSOC, stormed the venue of the NBA conference last Monday, to protest what they described as NJC’s and CJN’s impunity, Salami’s suspension and Adamu’s appointment. Displaying banners and placards with various inscriptions, LOCCSOC stressed that Katsina-Alu and NJC have destroyed the rule of law.

It also gave a protest letter to the minister through the NBA president. Signed by Debo Adeniran, Celestine Akpobari and Che Oyinatumba, the letter titled: ‘Judicial Impunity of the National Judicial Council,’ expressed the group’s disappointment that the NJC which should be in the vanguard of enforcement of the rule of law had turned itself into an instrument of oppression. “It is rather disappointing to find that judicial officers who are supposed to protect the integrity of the law are engaging in judicial recklessness and lawlessness. They became power drunk simply because they are in position of authority to determine the fates of others,” the group noted.

The organisation demanded, among others, the dissolution of the NJC which it sees as moribund, and a probe into the affairs of the body and all the unscrupulous individuals thereof; that the outgoing Katsina-Alu be removed from the position of CJN and chairman of NJC, arrested and prosecuted for perjury. It said that the purported suspension of Salami was null and void, as the NJC has no powers to suspend him in the first place and that the purported appointment of an acting PCA is also null and void as the president has no power under the 1999 Constitution to do so.

More importantly, LOCCSOC said that in view of the above contraventions of constitutional provisions, the Senate which is vested with the power for such appointment should without delay begin the process of impeachment of President Jonathan for this “brazen illegality”. It urged the NBA to revisit the report of the association’s independent inquiry into the Sokoto governorship tussle which indicted the outgoing CJN with a view to implementing its recommendations.

In Lagos, members of human rights groups under the aegis of Civil Society Coalition against Injustice also protested against the war in the judiciary. At a peaceful demonstration in the office of  Babatunde Fashola, governor of Lagos State, members carried placards with inscriptions such as “Go, Katsina-Alu, go now,” “National Judicial Council is a fraud,” “Judicial hypocrisy in the NJC,” “Salami the Incorruptible Judge,” “NJC’s Shameless Justice.” Ayo Opadokun, spokesman for the group, berated the judiciary, saying it has been, “reduced to state of penury.”

The group decried the role of NJC in recent times and noted that it was appalling and destructive to national co-existence. It described the current judiciary as “nothing but a kangaroo system where double standard, partiality, corruption, nepotism, shamelessness, perversion, arrogance, mediocrity and shallowness of thought and knowledge reign supreme.” It, therefore, called for the dissolution of NJC while stressing that a probe be conducted into its affairs to sanction all unscrupulous individuals involved in the unfolding melodrama.

The Salami – Katsina-Alu feud which has now snowballed into a national disgrace began in February 2010 when the CJN who doubles as NJC chairman, stopped the Appeal Court, Sokoto, from delivering ruling in the case  between Muhammadu Dingyadi of the Democratic People’s Party, DPP, and Magatakarda Wamakko of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP. Both men had contested the April 2007, governorship election and the May 24, 2008 rerun. INEC declared the PDP candidate winner on the two occasions. On January 18, 2010, the judges of the Appeal Court, Sokoto, led by Muhammad Dattijo, had heard the appeal filed by Dingyadi and fixed February 24, for ruling. Given this situation, DPP felt it should discontinue an interlocutory appeal it filed at the Supreme Court. This has turned out to be an unwise step.

Yahaya Mahmood, lawyer to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and Alfred Agu, solicitor to Wamakko, on February 15, petitioned the NJC, alleging that the judgement had leaked to DPP, otherwise it would not have rushed to withdraw the case at the Supreme Court. Katsina-Alu, therefore, stopped Salami and five judges handling various cases in the governorship election. “You are to ensure that further action on the appeal is put on hold pending the determination of the serious allegations levelled against you,” he told Salami and his colleagues.

Many Nigerians condemned the “arrest” or “kidnap” of the ruling in the Sokoto governorship tussle. The NBA then said: “This is regrettable. If the independence of the judiciary is to be sustained then administrative agencies within the judiciary, no matter how powerful, must exercise the greatest restraint and caution not to intervene in the working of the courts. Great care must be taken that superior courts, no matter how highly placed, work within the limits of their constitutional jurisdiction. To embrace jurisdiction under very dubious and doubtful circumstances and stultify the constitutional duties of other courts amounts, in simple terms, to a judicial coup d’état and grievous assault on the Constitution itself.”

Ruling was fixed for October 4, 2010. But before the Sokoto Court of Appeal panel could deliver judgement, a panel of the Supreme Court presided over by Dahiru Musdapher issued an injunction restraining the panel in Sokoto, from proceeding to deliver ruling in the appeal. Subsequently, a five-man panel headed by B. Babalakin, former justice of the Supreme Court, was set up by the CJN. The panel, in its report, found that there was no case of misconduct made against the PCA and that the CJN has no power to interfere with any proceedings in any court as was done in the Sokoto case. Katsina-Alu accepted the conclusions “in good faith.”

About this time, Salami had set up panels of his court to determine the governorship election appeals in Ekiti and Osun states. He personally headed the Ekiti panel. Segun Oni and Olagunsoye Oyinlola, the PDP governors, lost to Kayode Fayemi and Rauf Aregbesola of the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN. Oni, the deposed governor of Ekiti State, and Sunday Ojo-Williams, chairman of Osun PDP, petitioned the NJC alleging underhand deals between Salami and ACN. They provided call logs of many telephone numbers to that of the PCA.

It was around this period too that the CJN began moves to elevate Salami to the Supreme Court in a bid to remove him from his position as PCA. But he stoutly resisted this with a suit at the Federal High Court, Abuja, number FHC/ABJ/CS/157/2011 on February 8, 2011. But following persuasions from well meaning Nigerians, he withdrew it for amicable resolution of the issues.

Based on the various petitions against Salami, the NJC set up a five-man panel headed by Umaru Abdullahi, CON. The panel submitted its report dated July 6, on July 27. In it, the justices said the PCA’s allegation that the CJN asked him to pervert justice in Sokoto was unfounded. Although the NJC accepted the report, it nonetheless set up another three-man panel headed by Ibrahim Ndahi Auta to make recommendations on the report of the first panel.

Salami said in the suit against NJC, Musdapher, CJN and eight others at the Federal High Court, Abuja, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/723/11 and dated August 15, 2011, that despite the adverse findings of the Abdullahi panel against him, the NJC, first defendant, did not furnish him with a copy of the report and invite his reactions to same and that the Auta panel also did not give him the opportunity to react or say something about its assignment. He claimed that he got to know that the third panel had submitted its report and had been acted upon by the NJC on the pages of newspapers.

He, then, prayed the court to, among several others, “issue orders setting aside all the steps or actions taken by the first to 11th defendant based on or connected with or relating to NJC Investigation Committee; set aside the warning letter written to him to apologise to CJN on August 9, as well as issue perpetual injunctions restraining NJC, Musdapher and Katsina-Alu from taking any further actions, reaching any conclusions or issuing any directive(s) on the various petitions against him for which the Abdullahi panel was set up or taking any or further action, reaching any conclusion(s) or issuing any directive(s) in any form whatsoever in respect of the findings and recommendations of the NJC Investigation Committee and Auta panel.”

Despite the pendency of the suit,  on August 18, the NJC recommended his removal to President Jonathan who subsequently suspended him three days later.

Many prominent Nigerians, political parties and organisations have condemned the president’s action. The ACN and Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, Campaign for Democracy, CD, and the Transition Monitoring Group, TMG, described Salami’s suspension and appointment of Adamu as acting PCA as unconstitutional. The Arewa Consultative Forum, ACF, the northern socio-political group, described it as “Kabukabu (macabre) dance” in the judiciary while former Vice President Atiku Abubakar called for an adherence to the constitution in the resolution of the crisis in the judiciary.

The ACN said Section 238 which the president relied on for his action deals with the appointment of President and Justices of the Court of Appeal if the office is vacant while Section 292 of the constitution deals with the removal of top judicial officers, including the president of the Court of Appeal. Under this section, the president can only remove any of the listed officers, acting on an address supported by two-thirds majority of the Senate. This meant that only the Senate can initiate the process upon the recommendation of the NJC.

The Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, SERAP, did not only condemn the suspension but also dragged the federal government and NJC to court over what it called “unlawful suspension and removal of Salami as president of the Court of Appeal.”

Gabriel Osu, a monsignor and director of communication, Lagos archdiocese of the Catholic Church, said it was strange that top judicial officers like Katsina-Alu and  Salami, have chosen to wash their dirty linen in public. He said the judiciary, apart from being the last hope of the common man, is also supposed to be a seat of wisdom where justice is dispensed, and such problems as this could lead to anarchy. He called for an amicable settlement of the matter. “The two of them are almost out of service and what kind of legacy do they want to leave behind. It’s a bundle of disgrace,” he said, adding:  “If it were in a civilised clime, even the CJN will throw in the towel.”

On its part, the Equity and Justice Forum, a Lagos-based non-governmental organisation, called on the National Assembly to “save the judicial arm of government from itself by instituting a public hearing on the rot that has devastated the judiciary and rendered it prostrate in the eyes of Nigerians.”

Neighbour to Neighbour, one of the pro-Jonathan groups in the build up to the April 2011 presidential election condemned the solidarity protests in some parts of the country. In a statement titled: “Making a mountain out of a molehill,” the body claimed the NJC acted within its powers.

Abati told Newswatch last week that President Jonathan had no hand in the face-off between Salami and NJC, pointing out that the president is a strong adherent to the rule of law, separation of power and the principle of the independence of the Judiciary.  He said the president’s approval of Adamu as acting PCA was in conformity with the constitutional responsibilities of the president having received the recommendation from NJC.

When Salami’s case challenging the NJC’s actions and recommendation came up last Wednesday, August 24, 10 of the 11 defendants were absent. Thus, the trial judge adjourned the matter to September 7.

Reported by Chris Ajaero, Tobs Agbaegbu, Anzah Phillips, Emmanuel Uffot, Anthony Akaeze, Dike Onwuamaeze and Godfrey Azubike