On a certain Tuesday, February 9, 2010, the National Assembly set what Aloma possibly adopted as a blueprint. Powering Goodluck Jonathan through the human blockade in the name of cabal, the federal lawmakers went neological with the new political register; Doctrine of Necessity, to uplift him to Acting President from a despised Vice President, with his boss, Umaru Yar’Adua’s headship, considered functus officio, despite still being alive. The rest is now history.
Aloma, riding on the crest-wave of history as the first female CJN and rolling in as an anti-system jurist, put up with the monstrosity of seniority that places Adamu’s kind in positions they would have to undergo a complete remake to barely fit in, before settling for a repeat performance of the legislative innovation. After about four months in office, she threw Adamu out despite still in service as the most senior justice of the court, sidestepped seniority and brought in, his immediate junior, in acting capacity, Justice Zainab Adamu Bulkachuwa, who is the incumbent President of the Court of Appeal and the court began a new life under her.
Like Adamu, Bulkachuwa also had a long acting reign. With an acting term pegged at three months by the constitution, Zainab got not one or two, but six acting terms, running into about 18 months, before former President Goodluck Jonathan, appointed her in substantive capacity, following the dramatic recommendation by the National Judicial Council at its Tuesday, 26th February, 2014 meeting.
That was the history of her appointment but not the story. At the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) meeting preceding the NJC’s, something tragic happened to the judiciary, but passed practically unnoticed because Aloma decided to uncharacteristically play “system”, alongside some characters, with no known history of being charitable towards nation building. She allowed herself, because of minority status during the debate, to be drowned by the banditry of those bonding for the filth and roguish influence they dreamed under their “candidate”. And here we are today; the Court of Appeal under Bulkachuwa always managing to shame justice that is supposedly so blind not to see the mockery she is being subjected to. When the Supreme Court recently flogged the intermediate court over Rivers APC’s imbroglio and Bulkachuwa’s sympathisers were spinning a counter in the media, I just waka pass. Yoruba will say “amukun eru e wo, o ni ee wole (you can’t build something on nothing).
I return to that unforgettable moment when a solitary voice which happened to be Aloma’s, asked the FJSC meeting secretary to put it on record, her objection to Bulkachuwa’s confirmation as the substantive PCA. Quoting her, “since she (Bulkachuwa) has been there as acting president, nothing has changed. Let it be on record that I didn’t support this nomination”.
She also made it clear that she favoured Justice M.L Garba, then head of Calabar Division of the Court, who was dubbed the “merit candidate”. Unfortunately for the “untainted candidate” he was number seven then, in hierarchy.
The federal executive arm is always represented on the FJSC by the Attorney General of the Federation and at the said meeting, Mohammed Adoke, Jonathan’s AGF, was the devil’s advocate. He stood up to Aloma and stood against the future of the court and the glorious garment a more honourable headship would have draped on it. But can you demand what a man doesn’t have from him? What does the name Adoke evoke even as minister? What does the record of his service say after office? What honourable man holes up in a European lurch in the name of seeking justice? The same justice he helped raped incessantly while in office? The same justice he blocked Aloma, mobilizing that gathering of volcanic vultures, from ensuring for the Court of Appeal and innocent men and women who would come there seeking what they think they should get?
Adoke and his wayfaring compatriots, were not seeking a blind justice which dispenses without fear or favour, they sought and got a crippled clone and enthroned it on the Court of Appeal, which is now earning the establishment constant stinging rebuke not only from its older sister; the Supreme Court, but even from the unlearned. Haba! How can we allow the quest for lucre of a rapacious elite become the curse of all?
But I still blame Aloma for conceding, albeit uncharacteristically, cheaply, to the evil axis of the polity, in the matter of a judge, the-then CJN said to her face she wasn’t a fan and supporter at all, because she knew she would end, messing things up. After being in the same system for decades, no FJSC outsider, would claim to know those under consideration as Salami’s permanent replacement, than the CJN who had the freest access to the intelligence reports on all the candidates and such interloping fellow, whether Adoke or Andoakaa, should not have been allowed to have a staying say . Was it not the same intelligence report, including the aspect of picking and finishing businesses with flesh hawkers inside the official PCA vehicle, with torn packs of condom as a memento, that eventually nailed Adamu, confining him to the Kaduna Division, (not even Abuja as the most senior justice of the court), as a junior to his junior, until his retirement and eventual death?
Infact, for Bulkachuwa, intelligence profiling would have been needless in presenting a fitting unauthorised biography of the dizzying dame now sitting atop a court, doing poorly with justice delivery than WAP TV hilarious Peoples’ Court.It is public knowledge that she was the agent provocateur in the Sokoto Governorship Election Petition issues that resulted in the most-engulfing crisis in modern time, for the judiciary. But who will dare touch the princess of the system?
(To be continued)
and then