THE National Judicial Council (NJC) yesterday named a fresh seven-man panel to review the report of the committee it set-up to investigate the face-off between the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Aloysius Iyorgher Katsina-Alu and the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami.
The Guardian gathered that the seven-man committee to be headed by the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Ibrahim Auta, has a mandate to review, ratify and recommend appropriate sanction for any erring party.
An authoritative source within the judiciary circle, who confirmed this development, said the committee named by the Deputy Chairman of NJC, Justice Dahiru Musdapher, has seven working days to submit its report.
He explained that it was imperative to set up the-Auta panel to make recommendation because the first panel headed by former President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Umaru Abdulahi, was not given the mandate to do so.
It was learnt that the mandate of the Justice Abdulahi panel was limited to investigating the immediate and remote causes of the feud between the country's principal judicial officers. However, in the Abdulahi panel's report, Salami's claim that Katsina-Alu asked him to compromise the course of justice in the Sokoto State governorship election appeal was described as "baseless" and "without substance."
It, therefore, said a suit seeking to stop his elevation to the Supreme Court, whereupon Salami averred that Katsina-Alu asked him to pervert justice through the appeal panel in favour of the incumbent governor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), amounts to perjury.
However, Salami was still given a breather alongside other justices of the Court of Appeal who were also reportedly cleared by the panel on the allegations that the members of the governorship appeal panels in Osun and Ekiti states were financially induced to give judgment in favour of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).
The panel was said to have concluded that there was no evidence of financial inducement in the outcome of the two appeals.
The panel, however, reportedly established affiliations between Salami and some chieftains of the ACN.
The Guardian