Adegboruwa files suit to stop Buhari from appointing another CJN

The agitation over the fate of the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria has moved to the court shifted to the court on Tuesday as Lagos based lawyer and human rights activist, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, Esq, dragged the President, the Vice-President, the Senate, the National Judicial Council, Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen and the Attorney-General of the Federation, to court.

The suit filed by Adegboruwa before the Federal High Court, Lagos judicial division, was in order to preserve the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria.

Adegboruwa is asking the court to direct the President, and in his absence the Vice-President, to forthwith forward the name of Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen to the Senate for confirmation as the Chief Justice of Nigeria.

He is also asking for an order of injunction to restrain the President and the Vice-President from appointing another candidate for presentation to the Senate, for the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, apart from Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen, who is the most senior justice of the Supreme Court and who has already been selected and recommended by the National Judicial Council.

Adegboruwa further asked the court to stop the Senate from accepting, entertaining, deliberating upon or considering the nomination of any other candidate that may be forwarded to it by the President and the Vice-President, apart from Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen, who has already been selected by the National Judicial Council and an order of injunction to restrain the National Judicial Council from entertaining any request from the President and the  Vice-President, to consider another candidate for the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, apart from Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen already selected.

He further prayed the court to forthwith direct Hon Justice Walter Onnoghen to assume and take over and be performing and discharging the duties and functions of the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, until such a time that the President would agree to forward his name to the Senate for confirmation or until he retires at the mandatory age of 70 years.

Adegboruwa in a detailed 42 paragraph affidavit in support of the suit, traced the history of the previous appointments of all the Chief Justices of Nigeria, stating that it has never been the style of the executive to leave a vacuum in the highest judicial office of the land.

He stated that upon the coming into force of the 1999 Constitution, the President has no discretion in the choice of candidate to occupy the office of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, other than the person selected and recommended to him by the National Judicial Council.

Adegboruwa accused President Buhari of a negative bias against the judiciary which he had openly declared as his headache, stressing that the President is deliberately withholding the appointment of Justice Onnoghen in order to destabilize the judiciary and to force him into compulsory retirement, being a Christian from Southern part of Nigeria.

The rights activist accused the President of a hidden agenda to perpetuate civilian dictatorship and to implement his ethnic and religious agenda, by frustrating the first Chief Justice of Nigeria from the South in the past 30 years. He cited in the new suit, instances of the refusal of the President to obey the order of the Ecowa court to release Col Sambo Dasuki, rtd, the order of the Federal High Court to release Shite leader, Sheik Ibrahim El Zak Zaky, as precedents of the preference of the President for a system of lawlessness, contempt and total disregard for the judiciary and the rule of law.

The lawyer accused the Vice-President of failing to act decisively as he did with the case of the EFCC chairman, whose nomination he forwarded to the Senate in the absence of the President, maintaining that by February 10, 2017, the judiciary will be thrown into total chaos as there will be nobody to preside over meetings of the NJC, there will be no chief justice to assign important appeals and there will be no further appointment, promotion or discipline of judges.

He is asking for a declaration of court  that under and by virtue of section 292 (i) (a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, the failure, refusal or omission of the president and in his absence, the vice president to forward the name of Honourable Justice Walter Onoghen, JSC, recommended to him as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, to the Senate for its confirmation, amounts to a compulsory retirement of the said Honourable Justice Walter Onoghen, JSC, in a manner that is inconsistent with the due process of law and is therefore unconstitutional, illegal, null and void.

Also, he asked for a declaration that under and by virtue of sections 292 (i) (a) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, the Defendants are obliged to select, recommend, appoint or confirm the appointment of the 4th Defendant as the Chief Justice of Nigeria and under and by virtue of section 153(1), Paragraph 21 of the Third Schedule and section 231 (1-5) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, the National Judicial Council is the only body authorized by law to select and recommend any candidate for appointment as the Chief Justice of Nigeria among many other declarations.