• Revealed: President asked ministers to respond to allegations that they sought judgments in favour of APC
With
less than a week left for the incumbent Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN),
Justice Mahmud Mohammed to retire, the time to appoint a successor is
fast running out for President Muhammadu Buhari.
Investigations
by THISDAY have also revealed that the president may have queried two
of his ministers – Rotimi Amaechi and Ogbonnaya Onu – over allegations
that they tried to influence the outcome of Supreme Court rulings on the
election appeals for Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Ebonyi and Ekiti States.
Justice Mohammed will retire on November 10when he will turn 70, the mandatory retirement age for justices of the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
By virtue of Section 231 of the 1999 Constitution, it is the prerogative of the president to appoint a CJN.
Section
231(1) explicitly provides: “The appointment of a person to the office
of Chief Justice of Nigeria shall be made by the President on the
recommendation of the National Judicial Council (NJC), subject to
confirmation of such appointment by the Senate.”
At
its emergency meeting held on October 11, 2016, the NJC had recommended
Justice Walter Samuel Onnoghen for consideration as CJN.
If
his name is submitted and he is confirmed by the Senate, Onnoghen will
be the first person from the southern section of the country to occupy
the post in almost three decades. Justice Ayo Irikife was the last
southerner to occupy the post of the CJN between 1985 and 1987.
However,
with less than a week to the retirement of Justice Mohammed, the
president is yet to forward the name of his nominee to the Senate for
clearance. This can still be done within the next few days, however.
Going
by convention, the most senior justice has always been appointed CJN.
In this regard, Justice Onnoghen is favoured to emerge as the next CJN.
However,
in law, the president is not bound to accept his nomination. He also
cannot bypass the council in making the appointment.
If
for any reason, the president does not want to appoint the recommended
justice, he is at liberty to ask the NJC to recommend to him another
suitable candidate for the office.
A
source at the Senate told THISDAY that the Senate president was yet to
receive any letter from the president regarding the appointment of a new
CJN.
Section
230(4) of the Constitution is also instructive. It provides that “if
the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria is vacant or if the person
holding the office is for any reason unable to perform the functions of
the office, then until a person has been appointed to and has assumed
the functions of that office, or until the person holding the office has
resumed those functions, the president shall appoint the most senior
justice of the Supreme Court to perform those functions”.
Investigations
have also reveal that Buhari may have queried two of his ministers over
the allegations that they approached Supreme Court justices to
influence the court to deliver favourable judgments for the All
Progressives Congress (APC) in the election appeals from Rivers, Abia,
Ebonyi, Ekiti and Akwa Ibom States.
Presidency
sources revealed that during the CJN’s meeting with Buhari last month
on the arrest of seven judges by the Department of State Security (DSS),
Justice Mohammed reportedly orally informed the president of the
attempt to induce the judges.
He told Buhari that his ministers, among others, alleged that they were acting on the instruction of the president.
Justices
Inyang Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court were two of the
seven justices who were arrested by the DSS. However, after they were
granted bail, the two Supreme Court judges, in separate letters to the
CJN, blamed their arrests on their refusal to yield to demands by
Amaechi, Onu and other APC chieftains to give favourable judgments to
the governorship candidates of the ruling party in the five states.
Following
the revelation, Buhari was reported to have informed Justice Mohammed
that he had nothing to do with the allegations, but asked the CJN to put
it in writing.
On
receiving the CJN’s letter against his ministers, Buhari, a source
confirmed, queried Amaechi and Onu to respond to the weighty
allegations.
The
president’s position was in line with a statement issued by the
presidency on October 30, when it advised journalists and other
Nigerians to stop linking Buhari to the legal travails of the arrested
judges in the country.
A
statement by the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and
Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, had said Buhari would be the last person
to authorise anybody to induce a judge to pervert the course of justice.
However,
the CJN’s decision to report the affected ministers to the president
has not gone down well with them, as they are now hell bent on
extracting their pound of flesh from the judiciary and the Supreme Court
for daring to report them to their boss.
It was learnt that the desire to exact
revenge informed the filing of the charges against the Chief Registrar
of the Supreme Court Gambo Saleh by the Office of the Attorney General
of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice.
Owing
to the strained relationship between the executive and the judiciary,
the AGF has in recent times boycotted events organised by the Supreme
Court.
One
of such events was the valedictory session held in honour of a retired
Supreme Court justice, Sueliman Galadima. It has always been the
tradition of the AGF to attend and deliver a speech on such occasions.
But the AGF did not attend and neither did he send a representative.
Meanwhile,
the Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to the president, Mr. Femi
Adesina, has offered reasons why members of the ruling APC and those in
the president’s cabinet have not been prosecuted for corruption.
The
presidential spokesman, who spoke on a radio programme, Sweet F.M’s
Podium in Abeokuta, further maintained that the federal government’s
anti-corruption fight was not selective.
According
to him, the APC chieftains and appointees were not being prosecuted
because no evidence had been put forward indicting them of being
involved in corrupt practices.
“The onus lies on he who alleges to also prove (the allegation),” he said.
“The
fact that any PDP member crosses to APC does not provide automatic
shield. Whoever is indicted will be prosecuted,” he added.
On the arrest of the judges, Adesina said the raid on judges was only a raid on corruption and not the judiciary.
“Mr.
President has said it all. No one is out to intimidate the judiciary.
The DSS raid was a raid on corruption, not the judiciary,” he said.
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