Aloma Mukhtar: Changing the Way the Judiciary Works

In the arena

The Chief Justice of Nigeria has taken a significant first step in the quest for the sanitisation of the judiciary, writes Vincent Obia

When on July 11 last year, during her screening at the senate, Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mukhtar, was asked what she would do about the terrible corruption in the judiciary, she had absolutely no difficulty acknowledging the problem and asking the country to wait and see what she would do.

“There is corruption in the judiciary, just like every aspect of the society.  The most important thing is to curb it and lead by example and ensure that others follow. One other thing I would do is to embark on internal cleansing of the entire system,” Mukhtar said.
The cleansing seemed to commence last month when the National Judicial Council, which she superintends, decided to sanction some erring judges.  

NJC on February 20 suspended Justice Charles Archibong of the Federal High Court, Lagos, and Justice Thomas Naron of the High Court of Justice, Plateau State and recommended their dismissal. The council also set up a committee to probe Justice Abubakar Talba of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, who recently gave a ridiculously light sentence to a former director in the police pension office, Mr. John Yusufu, who was arraigned for involved in the embezzlement of nearly N32 billion from the Nigeria Police pension fund.

Yusufu was sentenced to two years imprisonment or an option of N750, 000 fine after pleading guilty to a three-count charge preferred against him by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission and begging the court for leniency. He said he had already forfeited over 30 properties to the federal government. But that was under a plea bargaining deal whose terms were not made public.

Archibong, whose compulsory retirement has since been approved by President Goodluck Jonathan, was sanctioned for dismissing charges of corrupt practices brought by EFCC against former chief executive officer of the defunct Intercontinental Bank Plc, Mr. Erastus Akingbola, without taking his plea, refusing to release the certified true copy of his ruling to lawyers, and issuing a bench warrant on some officials of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party for contempt when the counsel who was directed by the court to serve them filed an affidavit that he had not been able to serve the contempt application.

Archibong was also indicted for making derogatory remarks about five Senior Advocates of Nigeria, including former president of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Joseph Daudu. He had described the lawyers who represented EFCC in the Akinbola matter as grossly incompetent.

NJC recommended to Plateau State Governor Jonah Jang the compulsory retirement of Naron, who had headed the first Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal that heard the petition filed by the then Action Congress of Nigeria candidate in the 2007 governorship election, Mr. Rauf Aregbesola, against the declaration of Olagunsoye Oyinlola of PDP as winner of the election. The panel had upheld Oyinlola’s election, which was subsequently overturned.

Aregbesola had petitioned NJC, alleging excessive interaction between Naron and lawyers representing Oyinlola in the case.
Barely one week after recommending the retirement of the judges, the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee suspended a Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Chief Ajibola Aribisala, from using the elite title and all the privileges attached to it pending the outcome of an investigation. The suspension was announced in a statement by Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court and secretary of the LPPC, Mr. Sunday Olorundahunsi, following a petition filed by Fidelity Bank Plc.

Members of the public are often nonplussed by the strange pronouncements of some judges. Most of those rulings make no sense to the ordinary citizens for whom the judiciary ought to be the last hope.

In the Yusufu case, for instance, it beat most Nigerians how a man found guilty of complicity in the stealing of over N30 billion of public funds could be given just two years imprisonment or an option of N750, 000. Though, many experts have blamed the law under which EFCC had chosen to bring the matter to the court of Talba.

The judiciary is society’s bulwark against instability and whenever it shirks this sacred responsibility, society is put on edge. It behoves the judicial authorities to always seek out its officers whose conducts could be sources of instability to the polity and keep them at arm’s length.

Still fresh on the minds of many Nigerians is the case of dismissed Justice Wilson Egbo-Egbo of the Abuja federal high court whose exparte order of July 15, 2003, directing then Governor Chris Ngige of Anambra State to vacate office had led to series of upheavals that seriously threatened the country’s democracy. The controversial order had been made at the behest of erstwhile political godfather Chris Uba and other masterminds of the July 10 abduction of Ngige from Government House in Awka.

But there are other aspects of the justice system – where it is much more difficult to argue that the judges are to blame – that also require change. One is the undue delay of cases.

Just last month, the Supreme Court decided that former Senate President Adolphus Wabara should be tried for the so-called bribe-for-budget scandal that happened in 2005. If it took the judiciary nearly eight years to determine whether or not a person could face trial, it is doubtful if the substantive matter can be resolved in another 10 years. It is not clear where the blame for such bizarre delays lies. Some have blamed judges while others say the lawyers are to blame. But the judiciary cannot pass the buck.

The issue of plea bargaining is another area that needs review. The Yusufu case once again exposed the ills of the haphazard plea bargaining system that the country seems to operate at the moment. Mr. Emeka Ngige, SAN, has suggested the establishment of a template for plea bargaining.

“It should have a standard that must be put down in writing and agreed with the accused person. It would be like in a civil matter where parties draft terms of settlement. When you draft terms of settlement, you can even include the amount payable as cost. All the judge would now do is to make it a judgement of the court and comply with all the terms,” Ngige says.

Under Mukhtar, the judiciary has taken some critical first steps to cleanse itself. But it is worth noting that the public still holds doubts that such moves are often directed against perceived enemies of the government or applied in cases where the government has little interest. Mukhtar needs to do more to erase such doubts.

Political Notes

Opposition and the Spoilsports

An Abuja high court on Thursday foiled a move by a faction of the Congress for Progressive Change to kick start an internal crisis that could have dealt a heavy blow to the party’s capacity to effectively belong to the proposed opposition merger, All Progressives Congress. The group led by Senator Rufai Hanga had sought to remove the CPC national chairman, Prince Tony Momoh. Their case was struck out.

CPC reacted swiftly to the court’s decision by expelling Hanga and three other members of his faction. It is okay for the party to weed out those whose conducts could spoil the current attempts to create a strong opposition party, which everyone agrees is for the good of the country’s democracy. But CPC and the other opposition parties must devise better means of resolving internal squabbles and try to avoid the extreme and often costly measure of expulsion. Such expulsions at a time like this might work against the opposition.