Penultimate Friday, now-retired Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad quaked his constituency where he began service as a Higher Registrar at the High Court of Minna, in 1976, spending a cumulative of 47 years, alternating between Bench duty and court administration. On his last day on the Supreme Court Bench and as the deputy chairman of the National Judicial Council, he smeared practically everything within sight, including his boss, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Kayode Ariwoola, who he described as a despot, superintending a criminal enterprise.
While outsiders were caught unawares by his stinging rebuke of the institution he was believed to be a major power broker in, a lot of insiders, weren’t stunned Dattijo exploded before he walked away, though many were still bemused he would cross so many lines, to deliver his lines against a leadership where he served as the chairman of appointment, finance/budget and constitution review committees, as the most senior jurist in the land, after the CJN and NJC’s No 2.
Beyond the seeming patriotism on display at the fractured valedictory, judiciary insiders have scaled their theory for the angry outing to one issue that has refused to go away since the premature exit of the disgraced CJN, Muhammad Tanko on June 27, 2022; ambition.
It is an open secret within the system that Dattijo too struggled for the number one seat when all justices of the apex court, signed on Tanko’s exit, which forced the hands of then President Muhammadu Buhari, to give his consent. Though Ariwoola was generally considered the most senior Justice of the court when Tanko was exiting, Dattijo reportedly staked a claim and as ridiculous as it may sound, there could be a method to what is now considered as “madness”. By assumed convention, succession is by seniority in the Judiciary, but nothing is absolute about the arrangement and it has been repeatedly altered in the past, including a total outsider like Professor Taslim Elias, coming in, to becoming the CJN in 1972.
The succession arrangement like the Olubadan chieftaincy stool, has however given the apex court a bit of stability, though the Ariwoola/Dattijo scenario has persisted due to the issue of seniority at the Court of Appeal and lack of enforceable institutional roles for the most senior Justice, especially one, that is out of the CJN succession loop. Dattijo himself alluded to this and his argument isn’t without merit that the deputy chairman of the NJC, like deputy governors, should not be spare tyres, functioning only, at the pleasure of the CJN.
Dattijo obviously believed that he was senior to Ariwoola, which can be a contested fact. While seniority at the apex court is mainly about first-to-arrive, it can’t be discounted that he was already a justice of the Court of Appeal, seven years, before Ariwoola’s lifting to the penultimate court in 2005. But a stroke of luck got Ariwoola to the apex court on November 22, 2011 when South West had an opening, only for the same Goodluck Ebele Jonathan who appointed the now-CJN, to also appoint Dattijo to the highest court, eight months later, when his North Central, had a vacancy.
Somehow, the stakeholders must find a way to address this vexed issue and redress existing arrangements that could give birth to similar rancour in the future. The issue of judges’ transfer and preservation of their seniority in their new divisions, must also be addressed and resolved. If not, a bigger embarrassment may await the system.
The hawks in the system are stoutly against any kind of detente with Dattijo, which is understandable. They are angry that he had the power as chairman of “juicy” committees of the Judiciary, to effect changes he was moaning about at his valedictory. But the man sounded like someone with a title without the mantle (a man of God not called). Yoruba will say “a kuku joye” (leader without authority). He might be the chairman of powerful committees, but he was still reporting to a boss who was a former “junior” and also constantly reminded that his No 2, actually wanted to be No 1, ab initio. Of course, Ariwoola gotta do what he gotta do.
The stakeholders are again, likely to deliberately allow this episode die without taking necessary precaution to forestall a recurrence, the same way the Tanko/Onnoghen tango was practically left to breed the Dattijo moment. Tanko also saw himself as Onnoghen’s senior, despite coming to the Supreme Court in 2006 and sworn in, on January 7, 2007, while Onnoghen was appointed to the apex court, a year earlier. Their records of service however showed that Tanko was five years Onnoghen’s senior at the Court of Appeal, where he got to in 1993 and Onnoghen, in 1998.
At the height of their seniority rage 2015 thereabouts, then CJN Mahmud Mohammed had to literally separate the duo over sitting arrangement at an official function hosted by the National Judicial Institute in Abuja. Mahmud had to impress it on Tanko in unmistaken term that Onnoghen was next to him and had the Cross Riverian sit next to him. Tanko didn’t stop pursuing even when Onnoghen got the nod ahead of him following Mahmud’s exit in 2016. He eventually got rid of Onnoghen in 2019, in cahoots with the Buhari presidency, midway into a tenure that should end on December 22, 2020.
What Tanko got early, was also taken away from him early. Instead of retiring on December 31, 2023, he was ignominiously pushed out on June 26, 2020. God ensured that the time he took away from Onnoghen, was also taken away from him.
I know Ariwoola and Dattijo started well, but maybe the PDA (Public Display of Affection) of the early post-Tanko days, was survival instinct at work. The CJN almost conceded the entire administration of the apex court to his No 2, to the dismay, disappointment and disgust of top career officers in the system. Ariwoola called it collegiate leadership. Now, the same person is being accused of going solo and power-mongering by the same man he obviously gave a lot of latitude in the early days. Maybe Ariwoola borrowed the sense in ijafara lewu (leaving gaps being dangerous), and decided to take charge, considering reports that Dattijo was conducting his committee assignments like a cop, seeking dirt, to tar.
My findings showed that most of the issues raised by Dattijo in his salvo, are accurate but do not translate to CJN or anyone conducting illegalities. The salary disparity is down to classification, which can be easily corrected. Seniority disparity in Court of Appeal is all about federal character. If Ariwoola began squeezing Dattijo at a point in their “comradeship”, the duo should search their conscience, because someone wasn’t being straight with the “friendship”.
At the risk of appearing an ethnic bigot, I just wonder why this I-senior-you crisis is always rearing its head when a Southerner is or about becoming the CJN and the antagonist is always a Northerner. The closest to Northerner V Northerner was then CJN Lawal Uwais and deputy, Alfa Belgore, when the two “friends” disagreed over tenure-sharing and gifting. Before what appeared like a Belgore mutiny could spiral, Obasanjo, then as president, stamped it out, with military dispatch.
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