Judges have a decision to make…and it’s now (2)

Whenever Excellencies at state and federal tussle with the NJC, Nigerians usually get to hear a side to the saga. By design, judicial officers are to be seen and heard only in their courtrooms, giving considered opinions of what law is. This should ordinarily not be, because the silence culture which law conservatism imposes on the dispensers of justice should be limited to court cases and not extended to administrative matters. Well, it may be argued that procedural discontent between NJC and the executive arm can also end up in court, which should necessitate the Judiciary leaders, who also control the NJC, not speaking publicly about fights that could somehow end up, before them, especially the Chief Justice of Nigeria, who heads the Supreme Court and critical agencies of Judiciary like NJC, NJI, FJSC et al.

But it won’t be fair for the other party, president and governors, also talking about their tussling with the Judiciary, knowing full well the hand of the latter is kind of tied. That would be taking undue advantage of a dumb fellow before an adjudicator. And the Nigerian public is like the Nigerian Police. The first to report is right. The defendant goes into a case at an average Nigerian police station with deficit of a mindset. He is already deemed guilty before he’s given pen and paper for his defence under caution. Police is truly our friend. But a dumb fellow can be a dangerous customer. The dumb gathers strength when provoked. Everything then comes into play. When his fury is unfurled, the one at the receiving end usually carries the blame of putting leaves in-between lips.

Fortunately or unfortunately, NJC, save the Aloma period, has chosen not to be a wild dumb. Two doves in NJC chairman, CJN Tanko Muhammad and Secretary Ahmed Gambo Saleh, now shepherd the Council. Saleh is the invisible man of the Council. Despite coordinating its day-to-day activities, he detests limelight like a plague. He would rather do his work and go home. He doesn’t grant press interviews and words hardly leak from him, no matter how hard you press. Were he to be a clout-chaser like some public officials who have made see-me-I-dey-here their mantra, Nigeria would have garlanded Saleh times over for the backend revolution at the Supreme Court as the Chief Registrar before his “promotion to the Council as the Secretary. Testimonies of a fabulous job at the Council also abound but I bet he is happy not being noticed. Since Saleh isn’t one for public warmth, and Nigeria too, doesn’t bother about taciturn heroes, two has divided four appropriately, as they say.

But you can be silent without being silent. While governors like Nasir el-Rufai have gone public against the Council, demanding “resource control” of the Judiciary in their states, NJC would be doing the justice system a whole world of good, intersecting Their Excellencies at critical points to do proper stock-taking, even if their judicial divisions, would eventually be awarded them as birth-right by the National Assembly, where they are currently digging deep, through their senators for a total control. In el-Rufai’s agitation, a position which in fairness isn’t original to him and for which he holds no franchise, it is being reasoned that NJC can’t sit in Abuja and recommend judges for appointment into state judicial divisions. The resolution being sought is that NJC should control federal courts and judicial institutions, while states solely determine the fate of their judicial divisions, and operators.

The concept of true federalism in the context of the American presidential system we practice will tick all boxes for this argument, especially in the light of the restructuring frontiers be pushed to accommodate state courts of appeal and supreme courts, as they have them, in America’s 50 states. So, do we just hand the state divisions to governors a la carte?

I will stand with yes and no. While theoretical application wholly favours the governors’ quest, the reality of the operations of our democracy doesn’t align, with such gifting, without considering all odds and ends.

Before el-Rufai came up with the fight over the appointment of judges for his state, NJC and governors have quarreled mainly on the appointment of CJs, being the most sought-after, for the governors. Once the head is in your pocket, why struggling with the tail. The CJs allocate cases and if a governor is interested in a particular matter, all he has to do is instruct his CJ to hand it over to one of his trusted “boys”, or simply ask oga to handle it for a pre-determined end. This reminds of a former Osun State governor, who wrote on the file of a public official, ‘probe for dismissal’.  You say just like that?

Save a couple of cases, governors have largely had their ways with this most important judicial appointment for their states. Even in Cross River, where the professor-governor has seen to it that a junior, Justice Maurice O. Eneji, as the Ag. CJ, is bossing his senior, Justice Akon Bassey Ikpeme, the Council hasn’t wielded the big stick unlike the Aloma days, though it resolutely resisted Ben Ayade’s inexplicable action of suddenly dropping the same Ikpeme he earlier nominated to the Council as the next CJ of the state. When the most famous Bello in Lokoja also began his makossa with the CJ’s job, Saleh’s NJC also fixed him with little or no noise. Well, they say there is power in silence.

Pastor Biodun Fatoyinbo of COZA is surely not a darling of many Nigerians, considering his many phallus controversies. But God that can use stones can use anyone. In one of the messages of the obviously-gifted man of God, he said his son asked him someday why Christians shout when they do fire prayer. He said he told the young man, you don’t need to shout to receive a gift, but you need to shout when it is about to be taken away.

It is still not likely Gambo’s NJC will shout as governors move to take away its constitutional responsibility. For the many troubles of regularly visiting states, for the welfare of judges before their appointment and clashing repeatedly with governors, over due process in appointing CJs, it could be something of a relief for the Council, left, with managing, only federal judicial officers. But what about the vagaries that will certainly come with Excellencies not being accountable to anyone again, in dealing with the institution, still regarded, as a bastion of hope, even if not for every common man?

(To be continued).

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