THE Executive Secretary, Anti-Corruption and Research-Based Data Initiative (ARDI), Chief Dennis Aghanya, on Tuesday, told the Kogi State Chief Judge, Justice Nasiru Ajanah, to step aside to enable security agencies to conduct proper investigations into the allegations levelled against him.
Chief Aghanya, at a press conference in Abuja, said the National Judicial Commission (NJC) had failed to address the substance of the allegations against Ajanah, who was indicted for gross misconduct by the Kogi State House of Assembly, threatening to take further steps against the CJ if he failed to step aside.
He also accused the NJC of giving the embattled Chief Judge what it described as a soft landing.
According to him: “The Kogi State House of Assembly has statutorily done the needful by investigating the report and aligned itself with the state Auditor-General.
“It is on the basis of this that we are calling on the NJC to ask the State Chief Judge to step aside and allow the necessary agencies to investigate the matter and do the needful.
“Failure to address our petition after seven days would compel us to graduate into the next level of action.”
“We consider this pattern of soft landing as dangerous precedence by the NJC. It should learn to call a spade a spade so that justice can actually be seen to be dispensed.” He explained.
Chief Aghanya, who wrote the petition which led to the suspension and eventual prosecution of the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, further accused the NJC of settling a dangerous precedent, adding that it sent a similar recommendation to President Muhammadu Buhari on the former CJN which the President disregarded.