On Wednesday, July 24, 2019, President Muhammadu Buhari swore in Justice Muhammed Tanko as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria. Exactly three years after, the president consented Tanko gotta go, and his forced resignation was leaked on 26th June, 2022.
In the original succession schedule, before the Onnoghen debacle, Justice Tanko was the crown prince. Official documentation says he would be CJN after Onnoghen from December 22, 2020 when Onnoghen was expected to retire, to December 31, 2023, still making a total of three years.
By siding with the Buhari administration in the Onnoghen saga, instead of being the cornerstone for the system, Tanko appeared to have gained two extra years that should take his tally to five years, when he prematurely gained the throne. But God’s way isn’t ours. He ensured that Tanko enjoyed nothing of what he got, playing Judas against the system. Like Iscariot, the 30 pieces of silver served no purpose. God truly rules in the affairs of men (Daniel 4:17). Practically everything Tanko served Onnoghen, he got back, even in multiple. Apart from his own deputy, now-Ag. CJN, Kayode Ariwoola also rising against him and leading the mutiny that ended his reign, the corruption tag that was woven around Onnoghen’s wrist became a ballast on Tanko’s neck.
Definitely, your colleagues accusing you of corruption is of epic proportion in comparison to an attack dog of the executive, floating unsubstantiated figures around. It didn’t end there. Multiple system senior sources told me that barely a week Justice Tanko got into office in acting capacity, in the early days of 2019, the cognitive depreciation ailment that eventually contributed to his downfall, suddenly happened on him. Someone who worked very closely with him at the apex court spoke highly of his jurisprudential and mental clarity as a Justice of the court, despite his specialisation in Sharia legal system.
Then, ambition kicked in. Tanko began contesting seniority with Onnoghen, when the Cross-Riverian was the deputy. An embarrassing scenario at the National Judicial Institute (NJI) when Tanko refused to have Onnoghen seated before him, forced Mahmud straightening things out between the duo. Seniority at the Supreme Court and succession queue is strictly about who got there first.QED. And what exactly is Tanko’s argument? Onnoghen was called to Bar three years before him, both joined the Bench in 1989, maybe with differences in months and days and Onnoghen got to the Supreme Court in 2005 with Tanko coming in a year later. So what seniority was he exactly contesting. Truth is, Tanko knew the Buhari administration didn’t want Onnoghen as Mahmud’s successor and was deliberately raising needless dust to give more munition to the arsenal of the anti-Onnoghen crowd in Buhari’s kitchen cabinet. Tanko also possibly knew Onnoghen was also to be picked up and detained on the infamous night the homes of judges were raided by the agents of the state.
But by a whisker, Onnoghen escaped, though his home was visited supposedly in error, as excused by Daura’s DSS. When NJC under Mahmud sent Onnoghen’s name to Buhari as the next in line, Tanko’s name, as customarily done, was also sent as a standby. Well, it took Mahmud vowing to swear in Onnoghen instead of leaving a historic vacuum on November 10, 2016, for the president to swear in Onnoghen in acting capacity. It also took God taking away the president on medical vacation and empowering Ag. President Yemi Osinbajo with rare courage to defy his boss, for Onnoghen to serve in substantive capacity. The whole world saw how the rivalry ended.
I have gone this great length for those left in the system, particularly those in line to be CJN, to take away, useful lessons, at least, those among them, with inner ear. But for the Tanko misfortune, Ariwoola would have had just six months in the saddle as the CJN. Now, he has two years. It is difficult to place his fortune. Maybe it is divine reparation; God returning to Southern Nigeria what Buhari tried to take away through Onnoghen, though the President can still refuse to appoint the Oyo-born jurist as the substantive CJN. Well, if the Onnoghen cycle is repeated, there is still God who can move people around for His will to be done.
But the truth is, the acting CJN is the most endangered in recent history. He came in mutinously, spearheading a palace coup, against his boss, who happens to be Aso Rock sweetheart. Body language experts will tell you the man really after the heart of the appointing authority on June 27 when Ariwoola took office and Tanko took national honour. Imagine the President garlanding someone collectively accused of corruption by his colleagues, with full-mouth laughter! Then, check out his dirge visage when admitting Ariwoola to oath of office. Same day, same venue, two diametrical signals and coded messages.
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Ariwoola doesn’t even have a history of doing the president any kind of good. Even Onnoghen who cancelled Umaru Yar’Adua’s election for him in a minority ruling was cancelled when Aso Rock felt the need. But Ariwoola can ride any executive storms if he would learn from the mistakes of Onnoghen, when as an unwanted CJN, he was overreaching himself to be in the good book of Aso Rock, instead of accepting his fate of not having the president on his side and working assiduously to have the Nigerian masses behind him. When the president doesn’t want you, he doesn’t want you. He is a linear personality.
Though you can’t put anything past the Buhari government when clannish interest goes into an overdrive, there is the likelihood that the president, having seen God in action in Onnoghen/Tanko matter, may not want to rock the judiciary boat this time. That he agreed to swear in Ariwoola without former CJNs persuading him for hours at the Presidential Villa, like they did before he agreed to swear in Onnoghen in acting capacity, on November 10, 2016, is a glimmer that things could be different this time. Again, unlike then, when the desperation of reelection was all over the place, there isn’t tension of anybody truncating anyone’s ambition now and even if Ariwoola is considered a danger to anyone’s political interest, that won’t be a worry for the man in the saddle. If anything at all, having someone like the CJN as a potent weapon against some unwanted leading presidential candidate can become an advantage to Aso Rock. For now, there is no evidence that Ariwoola is politically-affiliated or conflicted, save for the little drama of his time on the Court of Appeal Bench, which almost cost his ascension to the Supreme Court in November 2011. But Goodluck Jonathan is a different kind of president. He didn’t listen to ‘dem say.’ He lifted Ariwoola to the apex court. And now, Christmas has come early for the bearded one. So also is the banana peel that consumed the two before him.
(To be continued).
and then