Blames lawyers, workers for graft in judiciary
IT was vintage Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Dahiru Musdapher yesterday at a public forum in Ilorin, Kwara State. Musdapher, who is not known for making unguarded statements or rushing into conclusion on critical judicial matters, held the audience bound for hours as he presented a treatise on the state of the judiciary in the country.
Musdapher provoked the first pin-drop silence in the hall when he declared the swearing-in of Kogi State Governor Idris Wada by the state President of Customary Court of Appeal, as wrong.
As the audience glued their eyes on him in anticipation for more, Musdapher touched on the pervasive corruption in the Bar and the Bench.
The CJN, who doubles as the chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), said lawyers and support workers were also culpable in the corruption in the judiciary.
He is however optimistic that the implementation of the recommendations of the Stakeholders' Judicial Reform Committee he set up on the judiciary will bring sanity to the system.
Musdapher spoke at the 5th Mohammed Akanbi Faculty of Law of the University of Ilorin (UNILORIN) yearly public lecture on the "Challenges of judicial reform in the 21st Century: The Nigerian experience."
Musdapher said it was wrong of the Kogi State President of Customary Court of Appeal to have sworn in Wada as the governor when the chief judge, whom, he described as the head of the judiciary of the state, was trying to ascertain the import of the decision of the Supreme Court.
The state's chief judge was allegedly trying to ascertain who was to be sworn in between Wada and the Speaker of the House of Assembly when the judge swung into action.
The development led to a situation where the duo at the same time held sway as governor and acting governor in Kogi because the Chief Judge later on the same day, sworn-in the Speaker as acting governor.
The problem was later resolved when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said the governor-elect (Wada) and not the speaker should be inaugurated as governor.
But the CJN yesterday faulted the action of the President of the Court of Appeal, saying the judge ought not to have carried out the exercise when there was a sitting Chief Judge of the state.
He stated: "In Kogi State, it was widely reported that the President of the Customary Court of Appeal had to swear in a governor when the chief judge who was constitutionally charged with the role, had refused to do so, until he had ascertained the true import of the decision of the Supreme Court. This is clearly wrong.
"By virtue of our training, education, modesty, humility, the issue of who is the head of the judiciary in a state should not cause any problem.
Anybody who rose to become either a Grand Khadi or a President of the Customary Court of Appeal ought to show by example, education, and humility that it is not really important who the head of the judiciary in a state is.
"Equally it is also true that a chief judge ought by virtue of his education act within humility and modesty in his dealings with his colleagues, he must not lord it over them. They must work together in harmony as colleagues for the betterment of the judiciary.
"There cannot be two captains on a ship as such a ship will sink. It is my submission that the chief judge is and must remain the head of the courts in the states," he stated.
Musdapher hailed the judicial reform committee, which, he said examined a myriad of issues and promised that the panel's recommendation would not be swept under the carpet.
The CJN, who said that corrupt practices undermined most of the earlier attempts at reforming the judiciary, stressed the need for cooperation among all the stakeholders to succeed in the reform.
He further canvassed a conscious effort among the stakeholders in the judiciary to restore the image of the organ of government towards retaining its integrity as the last hope of ordinary Nigerians and the bastion of the country's democracy.
Musdapher also urged the governors of the 36 states of the federation to respect the provisions of the nation's constitution and give the Judiciary its due.
Lawyers were challenged to respect members of the Bench to avert a resurgence of jungle justice just as Musdapher urged the lawyers to explore all the legal channels against any erring judge and shun media criticisms of such a judge.
According to him, "I hear of learned Senior Advocates, publicly casting aspersions on the character and integrity of judges, thus casting a palpable doubt on the ability of the Bench to dispense justice without fear or favour, affection or ill will. If this situation is allowed to escalate, we risk the breakdown of deference, which if unchecked could lead to a rise in the incidence of self-help and the uncivilised mob rule. Permit me to say, we risk catching the animal farm syndrome."
On the funding of Judiciary, he explained that for the dream of a 21st Century judiciary to emerge, the need to adequately fund the federal and state Judiciary remained imperative.
He said it is sad to see that fiscal independence is still largely a pipe dream in Nigeria, adding that a key challenge to the reform of the judiciary lies in the ability or otherwise to fund the reform programme itself.
The Guardian