Onnoghen’s choices

A pulling muse keeps saying to me I owe my sparse corner of history at least two tell-all books on judiciary, to document my modest insight into judicial corruption and power struggles within the system. I have working titles for both; “Objection, My Lord” is planned to be an exposé on judicial corruption from the time of Mohammed Uwais as the Chief Justice of Nigeria and chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to Mahmood Mohammed, the extra-ordinarily lanky immediate past head of the arm of government, and “The making of unwanted CJN”, detailing the crass politics, both within and outside the system, that culminated in the ascension of incumbent Walter Nkanu Samuel Onnoghen as the judiciary número uno.

No story of and on judiciary in the last 16 years, would ever be complete without the NJC part, the moneyed institution of the system, transformed by Halilu Danladi, former Secretary, from an inconsequential unit, to where everybody, including the one who purchased a gown and wig as Chief Registrar of a court for the head of that court for N40 million, now struggle to “serve”. The day I went to inquire of him about the “golden gown” from UK, he inadvertently let me into the bazaar that has become the buzzword in that particular court. The fellow remains on his seat and even seeking higher realm, to do his “business”.

Uwais era is chosen as the starting-line because that was the period Providence drew me closer to the top echelon of the system and apart from Idris Legbo Kutigi, the one with the drab persona, I have been divinely helped to relate at different levels and forms, with all the CJNs, from Uwais to Onnoghen, sitting with a couple of them, for hours, chewing together troubling judicial issues of their time and seasons. May God have mercy on him, late Dahiru Musdapher, the ruckus-maker and reformer, even threw his doors open at the zero hour of his CJNship for a lengthy interview, despite constituting my pen to an institutionalised opposition to his 11-month tenure. I was a little irked that given the not-too-saintly role he played between his immediate predecessor-in-office, Aloysius Katsina-Alu and rambunctious Ayo Salami, it was too cheap for him to grandstand as the reformer. At the risk of speaking ill of the dead, his role in the crisis, was the devil in the detail.

The face-off between Salami and Katsina-Alu, whose health is now grossly challenged and the only CJN in history to refuse valedictory session from the system he believed treated him unfairly, will be a major focus of the first book and despite the death of a major witness-to-history, (whose identity I plan to reveal in the book), names, events, actions, comments, plots, ploys and roles of prominent actors of that defining-moment, would he copiously mentioned.

Of all the CJNs from Uwais to date, eight in total, only Onnoghen was coming literally from “nowhere.” He had zero public service administrative experiences. He never headed any court at any level. Fate just kept shooing the roundly-acknowledged brilliant jurist, forward, until he was hierarchically positioned to lead the system. His known story is known to everyone that took interest in his ascension. Against all odds, he became CJN. Against all odds, he is seen as turning the tide, in a demulcent way. Against all odds, he may end up being the best thing to have happened to the system in a long while.

But in the real sense of it, the Nigerian judiciary cannot be said to have had an encore moment, whether when dominated by Southerners or when Northerners upstaged them and clung to the prized seat, except one is seeking an escape from the filth of today, by getting into fantasia romanticisation of a past with disturbing contours.

Today, it is easy for historians to call the disgraced Justice Adeniyi Ademola, a shame to the illustrious career of his grandfather; Justice Adetokunbo Ademola, the first indigenous CJN. But until the story of hunt is told by the lion, according to an African proverb made popular by Chinua Achebe’s fecundity, the chivalry tale will always glorify the hunter.

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Will that make all men in black and grey wig in our collective history, a sham? No. Before the Nigerian society shamelessly embraced the evil of materialism irrespective of how acquired, decency was in measurable adequacy on the bench and in the bar. Men and women who earned greatness through the use of law for social justice, also have a place in the heart of the people. The roll-call, may be brief, but the hall-of-fame will always be there for men of honour, both living and dead, though the opposite hectares-of-shame is longer and wider in comparative proportion.

That is why history is beckoning to Onnoghen after 28 years of Southerners being in the lurch. Without doubt, his courage in corruption combat is commendable. He has shown the will to do battle with the bad eggs within the system, gradually earning himself the “Hurricane Walter” sobriquet. I figure coming in underrated is working for his focus, energy and the surprises he’s spinning, since not many gave him a chance to shine. But Hurricane Walter cannot be freezing when approaching the home stretch. It is either the cleansing is total or the CJN ends the tokenism of pulling an ear here and stomping on a crotch there.

Onnoghen can pretend all he can, not to see the men and women sitting with him in judgment over others, for who they are, but that won’t change the narrative everywhere that the thief-catchers of judiciary are better in the dock themselves, than docking others. As heart-warming as firing corrupt and corrupted judges is, such decisions from the council even on daily basis, won’t make anything substantially different from what the likes of Aloma Mukhtar did. The moment of courage and enduring history, belongs to that CJN, who would unbundle the behemoth, called the Council.

Onnoghen is definitely not a prince of the judiciary, but could be king in the heart of Nigerians, if he would dare. If he must know or he pretends not to know, his NJC, I mean the amalgam of those “principalities and powers”, oozes like bursting sewer and it would be his choice to either do the needful or wait for the googled-boys to, again, do the clinical job for the system. Somehow, the job will be done.