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By:Douglas Ogbankwa Esq @douglasogbankwa@gmail.com
The Legal Profession ought to be and must strive to remain the dependable bastion of hope, help and succour for the repressed, the oppressed and the suppressed in our society.
-Chief Gani Fawehimwin SAN of blessed Memory.
The Nigerian Judiciary is under siege. It has be battered and tatarred by the Executive, especially at the State Level .A Governor can just wake up and sack the chief judge of the State. All he needs is the concurrence of his legislative aides, who unfortunately are members of an ordinarily independent State of House of Assembly.
In Edo State, since June June ,2023 , 8 Judges recommended for appointment to be judges have been left in the limbo as His Excellency the Governor of Edo State ,Gov Godwin Obaseki has refused to swear them in , as provided for by Law. The Judges Designate have been left hanging ,aside those from the Judiciary who are floating , they still earn their salaries as Magistrates or Presidents of Customary Courts.
Aikpokpo Msrtins Esq., and I have been in the forefront of ensuring the due process of law is followed. Acting as Chairman of NBA SPIDEL , he came to Benin and I, acting as the Team Lead of NBA SPIDEL ,Edo State ,co-ordinated an advocacy that transcended different strata.I, also as the Convener of the Vanguard of the Independence of the Judiciary carried out many steps to ensure compliance .See for example, https://www.lawyard.org/news/vanguard-for-the-independence-of-the-judiciary-writes-the-cjn-njc-over-refusal-of-the-edo-state-governor-to-swear-in-the-8-njc-recommended-judges/.
As we Speak Akpokpo Martins has been purportedly removed as the Chairman of the NBA SPIDEL by the NBA President, Y C. Mickyau SAN Led NBA NEC and I am currently facing a trumped up charge preferred against me by the Edo State Government in a matter I acted exclusively as a Lawyer .The National NBA however has maintained a dead silence on this swearing in of the Judges. The NBA is more interested in jamborees called Conferences than the things that affect Lawyers the most.
Bar leaders act as if things are okay. When the main crux of the judicial process, the Judiciary budgetary process, is left to political control, talking about pedestrian issues. The Nigerian Judiciary is under siege from politicians and it is now a laughing stock of the public and the international community.
Injunctions are now commonplace, even those that determine the main matter at Ex Parte or interlocutory stage.When you challenge such impunity even following due process ,Lawyers will cone down on you and will say you are fighting the Judiciary. Some Lawyers clouded by what they will eat , do not know the difference between fighting for the Judiciary and fighting the Judiciary.
We lost it during the Onnoghen case. Justice Walter Samuel Onnoghen, the then Chief Justice of Nigeria was removed from office with an exparte order by the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal, who was equivalent to a Magistrate in Nigeria and we all stood by and watched. What a shame!
I said then, that it was not about Onnoghen, but it was about the desecration of an institution that is sacred. That desecration is now hunting us all. We are now victims of our silence. During the ENDSARS Protest , a High Court Judge was broiler out in the streets of Enugu, Enugu State Nigeria and mobbed to death by an irate mob. It was not reported. Such action is condemnable and unacceptable. But there was no enquiry to ascertain what happened and also to stop a reoccurrence.
Now things have become sore and even dire. Citizens will seek injunctions against governments when they have established legal rights, and have shown urgency in the matter, showing that the balance of convenience is on their side and that damages will not adequately compensate them for the looming losses if the injunction is not granted. They are denied the injunction, which is concomitant with the facts of their case.
In the converse, government and forces in and around government seek even Ex Parte injunctions, when they have not shown any established legal right, where the order sought will one way or other determine issues in controversy. The injunctions are granted, even in the face of insufficient affidavit evidence, despite the position of the law which precludes such judicial indiscretions.
To make matters worse, leaders of the Bar keep quiet amid such judicial somersaults and the impunity and injustice go on and on. We now have judgments that do not even make common sense. The charade continues on all fronts. We are now a laughing stock. We either get it right now or lose it forever. We will be victims one day!
Justices Adetokunboh Ademola , Justice Kayode Eso, Justice Akimola Aguda , Justice Andres Otutu Obaseki , Justice Mamman Nasir ,Justice Taslim Elias, Justicd Fatai Atade Williams, Justice Chukwudifu Oputa, Justice Udo Udoma, Justice Anthony Aniagolu,Justice Adolphus Karibe -Whyte , Mohammed Bello, and Peter Irekefe, will all be crying in their grave, lamenting the state of the Nigerian Judiciary.
The Bar must rise up to the occasion.
The appointment process of judges must be taken out of the purview of politicians. In this regard, we must amend the constitution to leave judicial appointments to judicial authorities alone.
Appointments and interviews of Kenyan judges are covered live on television..You see by yourself who is qualified live on Television. There should be no room for cronism.O have never applied to be appointed a Judge , because I know I am.not likely to be taken .”He is too stubnorn”, that is cliche .But for our Society to be rid of the too many malfeasance we need “Stibborn Judges “.This Society needs a strong Judiciary. Just like we needs a strong police and a strong media. The three can cleanse this country.
We must remove the secrecy that accompanies the appointments of Nigerian judges. It must be open to public glare and public scrutiny. This is the only way we will be sure that there is transparency in the process of appointment.
The Nigerian Bar Association must be part of every State Judicial Commission and it should not just be a case of lawyers who are friends of Govetnor , but direct nominees of Bar .The Governors should know they will not governors forever. It is in their interest, that the right thing be done now ,so that the system will not wrongly used against them.
The days of announcing the appointment of judges by NJC statements should be over. Let Nigerians see by themselves who is qualified and who is not. Let the selection process for judges be covered live on television. That is the only way we can vouch for the integrity of the process. Fair publicity guarantees justice.
We will not be proud to bequeath this Judiciary to our children. You might gain the system today, but you can become a victim tomorrow.
We should also fight for the financial independence of the Judiciary, as provided for by Section 121(3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (As amended), which provides thus:
“Any amount standing to the credit of the Judiciary in the Consolidated Revenue Fund of the state shall be paid directly to the heads of the courts concerned.”
There is no magic about the issue. Just pay the money standing to the credit of the Judiciary on the first line charge from the Consolidated Revenue Funds to the heads of court.The funds include money paid for affidavits, filing fees, default fees , court fines ,estate percentage for orders granted , fees for money lender’s licenses etc.All these are monies standing to the credit of the Judiciary. The Judiciary is perhaps the highest revenue grosser for Intetnally Generated Revenue for most state government in Nigeria.The public should simply pay those monies to the Judiciary Account as provided for by Section 131 (3) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. It is that simple. What is the hullabaloo about this? If you protect the rule of law, while in office, the rule of law will protect you while you are out of office.It is not the State Governments that are funding the Judiciary in Nigeria, it is Judiciary that is funding the State Governments.
The Judiciary should also be self-assertive on issues when the law is on its side.When Citizens approach the Court to assert the independence of the Judiciary, the Judiciary at most times , have ruled against itself.The case of the 36 States Government versus the Federal Government on the Implementation of Executive Order 10 of June, 2020 ,which provided that the Accountant General of the Federation should first deduct the budget of the State Judiciary on first line charge ,before releasing the State Allocations.The Case of AG Abia & 35 ors v the Federal Government of Nigeria. The Supreme Court gave Judgment to the Governors and further emboldened the audacity of the impunity of the Governors to underfund and emasculate the Judiciary.
In Kunle Edun & anor. V. The Cross Rivers State House Of Assembly & Ors., where Kunle Edun, the then National Publicity Secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA ), and Ike Augustine a radical lawyer from Owerri, Imo State, both challenged the propriety of the Cross Rivers State House of Assembly denying the most senior judge in Cross Rivers from being the Chief Judge of Cross Rivers State because she is from Akwa Ibom though married to a husband from Cross River, the Federal High Court in Calabar ruled that there is no evidence that the House of Assembly was unfair to the judge. That was another case of the Judiciary not being self-assertive, ruling against itself when the facts and the law were on its side.On appeal and luckily two leading lights in the legal profession in Nigeria, Femi Falana, SAN, and Ferdinand Orbih, SAN led the legal team of the reformist lawyers and Croos Rivers State Governor was forced to follow the Law and not Clannish idiosyncrasies.
Kudos to Chief Femi Falana, SAN ,Chief Ferdinard Oshioke Orbih SAN , Ailpokpo Martins,Kunle Edun and Ike Augustine for the doggedness in seeing that process through. I must also commend Professor Chidi Odinkalu and his Open Bar Initiative for the temerity to spot light the Judiciary for change .
Not too long ago some Judges were in London for a seminar on issues that concern the Securities and Exchange Commusion and the CapitalMarket. We cried out and the Chief Registrar of the Court said the Conference wss organised by the National Judicial Council. The question is why was it that it was only officials of Security and Exchange Commission and Judges of that Court that were present, why were lawyers who do capital market and securities matters not invited ?We are not fools .After coming from London and after the huge out cry, they still headed to Uyo to do the Nigerian version of the seminar. London was not enough.
If you can not liberate yourselves little by little, nobody will liberate you and if the political class knows that you are a toothless bulldog when it comes to your issues, they will continue to run the Judiciary at the state level as a parastatal of the government house.
Budgeting is governance. The man who controls the budget controls the dockets. The inconvenient truth is that you may not get real justice in Nigeria at the state level the way the Judiciary is being run now as per the budgeting process. The men who approve the budget, and sign the cheque, all have cases or have friends and family who have cases in court. How do you expect justice in such a very partisan arrangement? So the Governors control the purse, the sword and does he control the Courts? There are are theories to this. The Courts in a state are however under the Chief Judge of the state
A situation where a Chief Judge or the Chief Registrar goes to Government House and begs for money, that is, that of the Judiciary and sometimes they are denied, is completely unacceptable. In some states of the federation, if the expenditure of the Judiciary is more than one million naira, the Chief Judge is at the mercy of the governor. How can we have justice in such a scenario?
In the midst of this some houses of Assembly are busy investigating alleged domestic issues .
Those in power should also know they will not be there forever. You will be a victim of the system you festered today, and tomorrow if you do not follow the law today. I promise you that. You will not rule forever.
About the Author:
Douglas Ogbankwa, Esq., @douglasogbankwa@yahoo.com, a Lawyer, Policy Analyst, and Writer, is the Convener of the Vanguard for the Independence of the Judiciary (V4IJ).
