The year 2011 was for the Nigerian judiciary a big show of shame, especially at the top rung of the sector’s ladder. Barely two months into the year, Aloysius Katsina-Alu, chief justice of Nigeria, CJN, and Ayo Salami, president, Court of Appeal, PCA, had flagged off the show of ignominy with accusations and counter accusations of perversion of justice in the 2007 gubernatorial election petition in Sokoto State. 

The petition filed by Muhammadu Dingyadi of the Democratic People’s Party, DPP, against Magatakarda Wamakko of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had dragged on for four years. And just when the Appeal Court was set to give its ruling, Katsina-Alu moved to truncate Salami’s efforts. First, he attempted to promote the PCA to the Supreme Court. But Salami resisted this stoutly when he turned down the planned promotion in a letter dated February 4, 2011. He said the elevation would pave way for the CJN to appoint a stooge who would do his biddings in the Sokoto case.

Next, Katsina-Alu suspended ruling in the case ostensibly to investigate two petitions by Yahaya Mahmoud, counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and Alfred Agu, solicitor to Wamakko, which doubted Salami’s neutrality and impartiality and judgement leakage in the governorship tussle. On February 8, the crisis degenerated further when Salami dragged Katsina-Alu before the Federal High Court, Abuja. In three sets of affidavits, he made weighty corruption allegations against the CJN. As the matter turned messier each day, the National Judicial Council, NJC, set up a four-man committee to probe Salami’s conduct. It indicted the PCA and recommended his suspension. The NJC accepted the recommendation and on August 18, 2011, suspended the embattled judge for “judicial misconduct.” The body said his conduct eroded public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.

The Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, described the suspension of Salami as the height of judicial mischief that only succeeded in putting the country’s judiciary, rather than Salami, on trial. The party said the situation was compounded by the fact that only eight out of the 23 members of the NJC attended the meeting at which the decision was taken. Even so, only five of them took the infamous decision.

The NJC was not done with Salami yet. It pressured him to withdraw the affidavits he deposed to before the Federal High Court, Abuja, and later recommended his retirement from service to President Goodluck Jonathan. The president, in turn, accepted the recommendation and appointed Dalhatu Adamu as acting president of the Court of Appeal. The new man began to implement Katsina-Alu’s script. He transferred the remaining four members of the presidential election petition tribunal out of Abuja. However, Salami challenged his suspension in court. The case comes up on January 9, 2012.

As the crisis festered, Katsina-Alu had a running battle with the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, over his decision to swear in 30 new senior advocates of Nigeria, SAN, just before his retirement in August. It was the last official assignment of the CJN as he had clocked the mandatory retirement age of 70 years of judicial officers within the cadre. At that time, the NBA was having its conference in Port Harcourt. The body warned lawyers and the new SANs to stay away from   the swearing-in ceremony. “Any legal practitioner that attended the ceremony will not be referred to by members of the NBA with any rank,” it warned.

Also, the association wrote Katsina-Alu and advised him to follow the tradition of the judiciary by deferring the ceremony till September 19, originally slated for the event and the beginning of a new legal year. The CJN ignored all the entreaties and all the 30 awardees showed up for and took oath of office. On August 28, Katsina-Alu retired from service. For bringing the judiciary to such disrepute, the NBA and the Body of Benchers boycotted the valedictory session held in his honour.

Next in the series of controversies that rocked the judiciary was the issue of tenure elongation by five governors – Ibrahim Idris, Wamakko, Murtala Nyako, Liyel Imoke and Timipre Sylva of Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa, Cross River and Bayelsa states respectively. The five governors had gone to court seeking injunctions to stop INEC from conducting elections on April 16, 2011, in their respective states. On February 23, Adamu Bello, a judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja, held that since the 2007 elections were nullified by competent courts, the oath of office and allegiance sworn to by the five men had equally been set aside. He subsequently extended their tenure till this year.

In granting the order, Bello held that based on section 180 (2) of the 1999 Constitution, the expiry dates for Idris was April 5, 2012; Nyako, April 30, 2012; Wamakko, May 8, 2012; Sylva, May 29, 2012 and Imoke, August 28, 2012. INEC was told to conduct elections 60 days to the expiry of each governor’s tenure.

However, INEC appealed the ruling on April 15, but the Appeal Court, Abuja, dismissed the application on April 15, 2011. Again, the electoral umpire took the matter to the Supreme Court. Ruling in the appeal is pending. Last year, the apex court settled finally the appeal filed by the Congress for Progressive Change, CPC, and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, over the result of the April 19 presidential election. The CPC filed its case on March 8, before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal at the Appeal Court, Abuja. The party alleged that General Muhammadu Buhari, its presidential candidate, was short-changed in the election. The five man tribunal led by Bayaang Kumai Akaahs on November 1, dismissed the petition, but Buhari and his party appealed to the Supreme Court.

Perhaps, no other case generated so much heat as the trial of Bola Tinubu, former governor of Lagos State, by the Code of Conduct Bureau, CCB. Tinubu was accused of operating 10 foreign accounts while in office as governor between 1999 and 2007, contrary to section 7 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act, Cap C15 LFN, 2004. Not a few Nigerians were convinced the trial was politically motivated, given Tinubu’s rising profile and the growing influence of the main opposition party. But on November 29, the three-man panel headed by Justice Danladi Yakubu Umar, turned in a “not guilty” ruling on the three-count charges, saying it was grossly lacking in merit.

Also during the year, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, continued with the trial of former bank chief executives fired from their respective banks by Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, in 2009. They included Erastus Akingbola, former boss of Intercontinental Bank Plc; Okey Nwosu, Finbank PLC; Francis Atuche, BankPHB, and Sebastine Adigwe, Afribank.

But the most dramatic case the EFCC took on was the trial of Dimeji Bankole, speaker of the House of Representatives. He was arrested on June 5, a day before he would have vacated office. The anti-graft agency slammed a 16-count charge bordering on fraud against him.

Bankole was accused of misappropriating Nine billion Naira capital votes of the House. He was also alleged to have engaged in corrupt practices in the purchase of cars worth N2.3 billion in 2008 as well as buying special vehicles worth N335 million for the leadership of the lower chamber of the National Assembly.

Only Bankole was charged with inflation of costs of several contracts that were awarded during his tenure to the tune of about N897million. He was, however, docked alongside Bayero Nafada, his deputy, in a 17-count charge for the N40 billion loan scam that rocked the 6th session of the House of Representatives shortly before it wound up.

As the year rolled to the end, many movie lovers were stunned with the arrest of Babatunde Omidina, alias Baba Suwe,on  October 12, by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport for allegedly ingesting narcotics. But after many days of detention without excreting drugs, he was released. But the actor sued the NDLEA, claiming N100 million damages. On November 24, Justice Yetunde Idowu of the Lagos High Court awarded him N25 million.

Four days later, on November 28, legal luminaries passed a damning verdict on the Nigerian judiciary. At the ‘All Nigeria Judges Conference’ in Abuja, Dahiru Musdapher, chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, declared that Nigerians were disenchanted with the performance of the judiciary and that corruption had eaten deep into the sector.  He was not alone in the condemnation of the rot. Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, chief justice of The Gambia, Muhammadu Lawal Uwais and Idris Legbo Kutigi, two former chief justices of Nigeria, also took swipes at the third arm of government. The trio noted that disregard for judicial ethics and code of conduct for judges were responsible for the prevalent corruption in the sector.

About 18 days earlier, the CJN had carpeted state governors for “killing the judiciary” in their domains. He said their interference in judicial matters badly weakened the independence of the country’s judiciary. He said the lack of independence at the state level in terms of funding, political manipulation of the process of appointment and removal of judges by some state chief executives and their respective Houses of Assembly, hindered the judiciary’s performance. “It is regrettable that some state chief executives treat the judiciary as an appendage of the executive arm. While it is true that, in some cases, this is self-inflicted (because of the way some judges portray themselves), it does not invariably follow that a distinct arm of government should, because of the actions of a few, be treated with disdain. Sadly, the judiciary in several states still goes cap in hand to the executive begging for funds,” he said.

Before giving this damning verdict, Musdapher had instituted a 29-man panel on October 14, to look into the rot in the judiciary and come up with proposals for its reform. The panel was raised following allegations of corruption and judicial interference which rocked the judiciary and led to the suspension and retirement of Salami. The panel was expected to submit its report on December 18.

The committee has since turned in its report. The CJN promised to implement the panel’s recommendation in order to restore the judiciary’s lost glory and rekindle public confidence in this vital arm of government. Will this make a difference in 2012? Time will tell.