Tasks before new CJN Kudirat Kekere-Ekun

 

On Friday, August 23, 2024, history was made in Nigeria as the second female Chief Justice of Nigeria, Hon. Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, was sworn in as the 23rd CJN by President Bola Tinubu. At 66 years of age, she is said to be the youngest woman and the fifth female Supreme Court Justice in Nigeria. Other female justices of the Supreme Court are Aloma Mukhtar, Helen Ogunwumiju, Mary Odili, and Clara Ogunbiyi. All things being equal, she will occupy that exalted position for four years. She’s expected to retire at the age of 70. The first female CJN was Hon. Justice Mariam Aloma-Mukthar who occupied that position from 2012 to 2014. I do hope the new CJN will build on the worthy legacy of her predecessors while avoiding their pitfalls.

There is no gainsaying that the judiciary is one of the pillars of democracy globally. It is one of the three arms of government and the one where occupiers are not elected but appointed. For instance, the new CJN was nominated by the National Judicial Council based on the fact that she’s the most senior of the 21 justices of the apex court. Her recommendation by the NJC has been accepted by the president who will in turn send her name to the National Assembly for screening and confirmation. Thus, she’s holding that office in acting capacity until the Senate will screen and confirm her.

But for the judiciary, this democracy, left in the hands of the political class, would have collapsed. The judiciary is believed to be the last hope of the common man. But for that institution, election disputes would have been resolved by violence, the kind of which motor park leaders use to gain control. Candidates would simply have resorted to self-help. That we have off-cycle governorship elections in eight states viz. Anambra, Ekiti, Osun, Edo, Ondo, Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo, is as a result of judicial activism and courage to right the wrongs of the Independent National Electoral Commission. The All Progressives Congress was heavily punished in 2019 for improper conduct of party primaries and other electoral infractions in Rivers and Zamfara states. While the judgment against the APC in Rivers came before the election; that of Zamfara came after the election. Certificates of Return earlier issued to the governor and other elected office holders in Zamfara in 2019 were withdrawn by the apex court and fresh ones issued to the first runner-up.

Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduagha (PDP—Kogi Central) is sitting in the Senate today because the judiciary restored her stolen mandate. We cannot but also remember the Supreme Court decision to invalidate the inhuman naira redesign policy of the Central Bank of Nigeria under Godwin Emefiele. Furthermore, the recent apex court verdict on financial autonomy for local governments was widely lauded. That we have law and order in the country today is because the security agencies and the judiciary are alive to their constitutional responsibilities.

Despite all the positive things the Nigerian judiciary has done to stabilise the polity and promote good governance, the optics are really bad for that arm of government at this point in our national history. Justices like Kayode Esho spoke about billionaire judges, Chukwudifu Oputa and a few others raised concern about corruption in the Nigerian judiciary many years ago. It was Justice Muhammad Dantijo who retired in October 2023 that brought that issue into focus again. As reported in P.M News of October 28, 2023, the eminent jurist said inter alia, “Public perceptions of the judiciary have over the years become witheringly scornful and monstrously critical.” He noted that as a result, many Nigerians now believe that the judiciary is characterised by filth and intrigues with judges now comfortable in companies they never would have kept in the past.

He also condemned the enormous concentration of power in the hands of the CJN in terms of appointments into the various judicial bodies and administration of the system in Nigeria. The retired Supreme Court justice noted that with the structure currently in place, the CJN is Chairman of the National Judicial Council which oversees both the appointment and discipline of judges. He is also the chairman of the Federal Judicial Service Commission, the National Judicial Institute, and the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee that appoints Senior Advocates of Nigeria. Dantijo was quoted as saying, “In my considered opinion, the oversight functions of these bodies should not rest on an individual alone. A person with absolute powers, it is said, corrupts easily and absolutely. As chair of the NJC, FJSC, NJI and LPPC, appointments as council, board and committee members are at his pleasure.

 “He neither confers with fellow justices nor seeks their counsel or input on any matter related to these bodies. He has both the final and the only say. The CJN has the power to appoint 80 per cent of members of the council and 60 per cent of members of the FJSC. The same applies to the NJI and LPPC. Such enormous powers are effortlessly abused. This needs to change. The continued denial of the existence of this threatening anomaly weakens effective judicial oversight in the country.”

There is no gainsaying that there are bad eggs in the judiciary just like in every other profession. The third national corruption survey report published in July 2024 and conducted by UNODC in collaboration with the National Bureau of Statistics ranks 1 – 2 per cent of Nigeria’s judges and magistrates as taking bribes. In its August 24, 2023 editorial, this newspaper reported that the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission report alleged that the judiciary topped Nigeria’s corruption index. It said about N9.45 billion was offered and paid as bribes by lawyers to the judicial sector between 2018 and 2020. Linked mostly to election litigation, six female judges reported being offered N3.3bn, and five male judges reported N392.2m bribe offers. Not long ago, a senator hinted on the Senate floor that he influenced the decisions of his wife, while she was the President of the Court of Appeal.

The tasks before Justice Kekere-Ekun as the new Chief Justice of Nigeria is to embark on judicial reform that will, among other things, expedite the dispensation of justice in accordance with the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015; weed out corrupt judicial officers including those within the court’s bureaucracy such as the clerks, bailiffs, registrars and other administrative staff of the courts. Corrupt judicial officers should not only be forced to retire, dismissed or sacked, but they should be put on trial and if convicted sent to jail.

The CJN at present wields enormous powers which need to be whittled down. Lord Acton in a letter to Bishop Creighton on April 5, 1887, rightly observed that “power tends to corrupt; absolute power corrupts absolutely.”  The new CJN should learn from the banana peels that led to the forced removal of Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen in 2019 and the controversial resignation of Hon Justice Tanko Muhammed ostensibly due to ill-health but really because of allegations of abuse of office in 2022. Hearty congratulations to my lord temporal. May history be kind to you!