Entire nation’s soaked in corruption – CJN

ABUJA — The Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, yesterday, in Abuja, declared that the entire nation was presently soaked in corruption and that the judiciary sector is not exempted. Although he did not expatiate on his position, he, however, said the deep corruption noticeable in each cardinal sector of the polity is a microcosmic representation of what is happenin in the entire country.

Justice Katsina-Alu dropped the bombshell yesterday during the swearing-in of eight newly appointed justices for the high courts of the Federal Capital Territory inside the biggest court room of the Supreme Court of Nigeria.

His observation, yesterday about the pervasiveness of corruption in the entire country, though an open secret, yesterday came as a shock to many, particularly serving justices present on the occasion.

But the number one judicial officer in the federation added yesterday that there was hope for the judiciary, saying that the National Judicial Council, NJC, was ever ready to flush out all the crooks presently sitting on the bench and those who have similar evil intention but being admitted mistakenly into the bench.

His brief comments made, extempore, immediately after the swearing-in ceremony of the new high judges yesterday reads: “Today marks another milestone in the history of judiciary. The task before you is important, daunting, enormous and demanding.

“Corruption is now a national malaise. It is a monster that has eaten deep into the fabric of the society and the judiciary is not isolated.

“As judicial officers, temptations will come your way. But the ability to withstand the temptation will stand you out. But if you fall victim, the National Judicial Council, NJC, will not spare you.”

Indeed, the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) was not the first to make such shocking revelation.

Vanguard recalls that more than ten years before President Jonathan Goodluck assumed office as the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Nigerian judiciary had been diagnosed sick owing largely to corruption.

The malady in the justice system was so pronounced at the time that it gave not only the right thinking Nigerians the reason to worry but also the successive military governments which largely contributed to the woes of the third arm of government.

The regime of President Ibrahim Badamosi Babangida was the first government that made a serious attempt to purge the system.

Specifically, the military government set up a panel to look into the problems facing the judiciary with a view to proffering solutions to them.

But all his efforts became a mere dream as the committee he convoked to handle the assignment never sat.

But the satanically corrupt regime of General Sani Abacha succeeded where the Babangida_led government failed as it got the consent of one of the best jurists in the world and former justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Kayode Esho to head the panel that would probe the rot in the sector and proffer a clinical solution to it.

The Kayode Esho panel which gathered evidence from across the Federation indicted more than two dozens of the serving judicial officers in the country and found them unfit to remain on the bench for reasons ranging from ineptitude, low productivity, incompetence to involvement in monumental corruption.

The panel consequently recommended both short term and long term measures to tackle the problems identified.

As part of the short term measure, it recommended compulsory retirement or and outright dismissal from the bench for the indicted judicial officers on the bench then depending on the nature of the offences established against them.

As a long term approach, Esho panel suggested, among other things, the setting up of a body to be called Judicial Performance Commission  (JPC) now (NJC) to act as watch dog of the judiciary.

The commission, according to the Esho Panel recommendation, is to deal with the multiple issues of appointment, discipline and remuneration of judges from the high court to the Supreme Court; the issue of the judiciary being self_accounting; the issue of corruption in the judiciary and the problem of court congestion.

The Esho panel report which recommendations later became a public knowledge was seen by many stakeholders in the justice administration as the only solution to arrest the rot in the justice sector.

The report though gathered dust on the table of late Gen Abacha which set up Esho panel, General Abdulsalami Abubakar Administration, in 1997, incorporated some of its recommendations into the 1999 Constitution authored by a military cabal and foisted on Nigerians as the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999.

Specifically, section 153 of the said 1999 constitution created the National Judicial Council (NJC) with statutory powers to hire and fire erring judicial officers, among other roles it empowered it to discharge.

As soon as President Olusegun Obasanjo recovered from the heat of legal fireworks provoked by election petitions maintained against his emergence as president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria in 1999, he went for the full report of the Esho Panel and referred it to the National Judicial Council (NJC) for necessary action.

That was in 2001.

He was of the view that no ailing sector of the nation would recover from its ill_health except the rot in the judiciary was first fixed.

And upon receipt of the report, the NJC under the able leadership of Justice Muhammad Lawal Uwais (now retired) set up a Review Committee headed by Hon. Justice Bolarinwa Babalakin,(Rtd), also a former justice of the Supreme Court, to study it and make recommendations.

At the end of its assignment, the NJC moved and there was an unprecedented cyclone in the third arm of government as not less than 28 serving judicial officers who were yet to clock their statutory retirement age were swept off the bench.

The decision of the council forced the remaining crooked ones on the bench to change attitude to work.

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By Ise-Oluwa Ige
Vanguard Jully 16, 2010