Today, there are 1,104 judicial officers in Nigeria. 844 of them serve at the state level, the remaining 260 are federal employees. That means for every four judges in Nigeria today, governors account for the appointment of three of them. It also shows that for every four judicial officers that would make the climb to the superior courts, i.e, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court, three are likely to have started their Bench careers as appointees of governors. Considering how deeply the political class has entrenched primordial loyalty as caste heritage, the usual sense of gratitude may transform to long-lasting IOU, giving today’s appointing authorities leverage beyond their stay in office.
Years back, after a ceremonial sitting at the Supreme Court, a judge prostrated flat right inside the main courtroom for a foremost SAN. Imagine you being on the opposing side of the SAN, in a matter before the same judge. You probably have your result before the match, unless the judge is touched by God. Learnt the SAN gets to regularly facilitate judges’ appointment. And to think he is just a facilitator and not the appointing authority himself. Little beginnings usually attract strong emotions.
In the appointment of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, those who started their Bench careers at the state level have gone to dominate the office in a monumental manner.
Save for the incumbent Justice Tanko, who started career at FCT High Court, as a federal appointee, the six before him all began their Bench odyssey at their different states. Even Tanko, at a point in his career, was a judge at the Bauchi State Sharia Court of Appeal. You don’t spend two years in a state, at that level, without interacting somehow with powers-that-be.
Onnoghen before him was a judge in Cross River State High Court between 1998 and 2005. Mahmud Mohammed who came before Onnoghen was acting Chief Judge of Taraba and later substantive CJ. Aloma Mukhtar was Chief Registrar of Kano Judiciary in 1973 and a judge of the Kano High Court for a year in 1977 before her Appeal Court elevation.
Late Dahiru Musdapher, who handed Aloma the baton, was Chief Judge in Kano for six years, starting from 1979. Late Aloysius Katsina-Alu began career at Benue High Court in 1979 before moving up in 1985. Late Idris Legbo Kutigi was High Court judge in Niger State in 1976. Even Salihu Belgore served as a magistrate in Northern Nigeria of old.
When covetousness is glaring, Yoruba will admonish with ‘you don’t carry a load of elephant meat on your head and search for cricket with your feet.’ Like humanity, divinity also harbours discontentment. Proverbs 11:24 warns appropriating and safekeeping needless more attracts lack.
Despite the theoretical shared constitutional responsibility with the NJC on judges’ appointment, governors obviously control both the state and federal judiciary. Apart from constantly having their ways with the appointment of Chief Judges for their states, which provides the political leaders, limitless opportunities for dishonourable behaviors, except in situations where the CJ has chosen to damn and die, governors practically control the levers of judiciary at all levels, as seen in the statistics above. But for the little constitutional control of NJC, particularly in the area of discipline, political actors at state levels would have since graduated from midnight-mania of interlocutory injunctions to daylight summoning of judges to government houses to be handed prepared judgments. Yes, justice delivery system is regularly breached, especially in election matters, but that has largely remained at nocturnal level, mainly because there is an ombudsman, NJC, which still bites, though the Council could do with sharper canines, at least, to put some sense into its “men” granting injunctions to sack and reinstate party chairmen to remove and restore gubernatorial candidates, creating needless tension in the polity. Well, feelers suggest hammer will soon fall on some fellows.
If governors already have so much control on judiciary, why seeking for more? Well, since constitutional democracy is about due process, the institutions that should be controlled by states can’t and should not be denied them, simply because of the profligacy that now characterizes governance. But they should also not covet the little, from which they are constitutionally restrained, simply because they want to feed their megalomania.
Two issues are at stake here. Payment of salaries and then discipline, which is at the heart of sanity and probity in the system. Currently, NJC pays the salaries of all judges, including those working in state judicial divisions and the public is yet to hear a single complaint of not paying in more than 20 years of the Council, coming in as an intervention agency after long years of states treating judiciary as a fringe institution and judges like corps members posted to institutions that do not need them. In the North, they would holler, korfa!
National Assembly must hear out the 844 judges serving at state level, if they want governors to start picking their salaries before any constitutional amendment is done, yanking them off NJC’s payroll. Interestingly, the same judges are already lobbying the National Assembly to tweak the rule law and pass their pension payment from governors to the same NJC. This, absolutely, clarifies where they want to be, at least, regarding their welfare. Of course, they must and seem ready to abide by NJC’s disciplinary regulations.
Definitely, governors would be getting more revenue taking over the salary payment of judges, but that may not translate to sustained payment as due. In this dispensation, that function has not been well-discharged by their Excellencies, maybe with the exception of Lagos and Delta. Curiously, the Kaduna helmsman championing the take-over is arguably most-notorious for dereliction in this regard. In lawmakers’ quest to unbundle the judiciary, the system, must not be bungled.
Beyond salaries, probity/accountability is sine qua non to future sustainability of the system. None of the parties should have absolute control of the judiciary. It is only a needle that has thread that doesn’t go missing easily. And if missing by chance, the thread becomes a reliable index.
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