Nigeria’s Judicial Commission Rejects List of Appellate Court Nominees

In a move that is being hailed in some quarters but also viewed with suspicion in others, the National Judicial Commission (NJC) today rejected the list of all judges packaged for elevation to the Court of Appeal by the court’s controversial outgoing president, Justice Umaru Abdullahi.

In several reports following Justice Abdullahi’s compilation of the list, investigators had revealed a plan by the Umaru Yar’adua regime to flood the appellate court with justices with notorious reputations for corruption. Our investigation revealed that Yar’adua and the ruling party sought to entrench these rogue justices in anticipation of the party’s plan to, once again, steal votes in the next round of general elections in 2011.

The Court of Appeal is the final arbiter in most electoral petitions but is first to weigh petitions arising from the presidential election.

The earlier plot to install a decadent appellate court was designed by Abdullahi, the outgoing Katsina-born president of the court of appeal who is retiring in a matter of weeks, having attained the compulsory age of retirement, Michael Aondoakaa, Nigeria’s most corrupt attorney general, and James Ibori, the former governor of Delta State – a practiced hand at compromising the judiciary.

Our earlier reports indicated that several of Justice Abdullahi’s nominees for the appellate court were linked to fraudulent election petition litigations. The nominees included the son of Supreme Court Justice Nikki Tobi, who was tapped for promotion by the Yar’adua regime to compensate his father for the despicable role he played in a shocking verdict that validated Yar’adua’s “victory” in the widely condemned 2007 presidential elections.

In today’s meeting, NJC members kicked against the lack of transparency involved in the selection of the judges for promotion to the Court of Appeal. A source within the commission told Saharareporters that several members were particularly miffed by the inclusion of Nikki Tobi’s son, Ebowei Tobi, a little known state judge in the Delta State judiciary.

The source also revealed that, following our earlier reports, members of the NJC raised questions about the failure to reflect federal character in the nominations. “The list of nominees simply did not fairly represent appointment of judges across the six zones of the Nigerian federation,” said the source.

However, another member of the commission as well as two sources at the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) told our correspondents that today’s action by the NJC was actually a tactical maneuver by Yar’adua and his allied interests, including former Governor James Ibori of Delta and Justice Nikki Tobi.

“I can assure you that these interests were behind the cancellation of the entire list,” said the NJC source. He said Yar’adua, Ibori and Tobi were alarmed when Justice Legbo Kutigi, the nation’s current chief justice, and the Federal Judicial Service Commission removed the names of some of the worst nominees in the first round of screening.

“As soon as Yar’adua and his group saw that the most fraudulent judges, earlier exposed in your reports, had been dropped at the first level of screening, they decided to sabotage the surviving nominees in order to give themselves another opportunity to regroup.

Among the cash-for-hire judges weeded out by the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) are Rita Ofili-Ajumogobia, a federal high court judge known for wheeling and dealing; Justice Aisha Sani Dahiru, the Chief Judge of Sokoto State; Mrs. Binta Nyako (wife of the Adamawa State governor); Justice Muhtar Dodo; Justice Amina Wanbai; and Ibrahim Nyaure Buba (a judge whose notoriety includes giving former Governor Peter Odili of Rivers State a perpetual injunction shielding him from prosecution for money laundering).

This had also reported that Justice Akinjide Ajakaiye, Justice Samuel Attah (who nullified Governor Sullivan Chime’s election), Justice Idris Ebuti from Niger State and Justice Rita Pemu from Edo State dropped by the FJSC.

A source disclosed that, following the exposé on the shady activities of many of the judges, the petitions against them that the FJSC had hitherto ignored began to receive expeditious attention. This scrutiny culminated in the commission’s weeding-out of the most embarrassingly corrupt and inept judges.

A source in the NBA also disclosed that Yar’adua and Ibori did not take the reversals lightly. The source added that NBA members got signals at last week’s meeting of the association in Port Harcourt that the Yar’adua/Ibori camp wanted to put up a new fight.

She said the clearest sign came from Ibori’s lawyer, J.B. Daudu, who strongly lobbied the NBA to reject what remained of the list of nominees. Mr. Daudu, who is one of the NBA representatives in the NJC, had based his case for wholesale rejection on the grounds that the South East was not represented on the list.

On the basis of that report, the NBA agreed to send a letter protesting the list.

“It’s bizarre that Justice Abdullahi would forward a list of judges and not include any nominees from the South East,” said another NBA source. Yet, he contended that the same entrenched political interests that had drawn up the list in the first place – seeking to shape a weak appellate court filled with sympathetic and corrupt justices – was also behind the push to junk the list. “That smells fishy to me,” said the lawyer, a former officer in the bar association.

In throwing the list, the NJC urged that state chief judges ought to be involved in nominating persons of impressive legal pedigree for elevation to the Court of Appeal – due to resume from vacation in September.

While one source who opposed Abdullahi’s initial list greeted the rejection of the entire list as a victory, two sources (one a lawyer, the other a member of the NJC) called for renewed vigilance and caution.

“Given the resolve of the players who want to use the judiciary to attain their illegitimate goals, I won’t be surprised to see the names of some of the most pliable and corrupt judges crop up again in a new list in future,” said a lawyer. He said the incoming president of the Court of Appeal could be susceptible to financial inducement from Yar’adua – and succumb to pressure to present again judges who are “rotten apples.” He said, “There’s no question that Yar’adua plans to rig himself into the office of president in 2011,” adding that “a lot depends on the personal integrity and professional ethics of the next appellate court president.”

Justice Abdullahi would be remembered for presiding over the most corrupt and incompetent arm of the Nigerian judiciary, the Court of Appeal of Nigeria.