Impeachment: Open letter to chief judges

by Ahuraka Isah

Chief Justice of Nigeria, Aloma Mukhtar
| credits: pmnewsnigeria.com

A country can still do well with bad laws but it cannot do well with bad judges. This is because if the judges are upright, they can mitigate the injustice, inhumanness created by people who made bad laws. But when judges are corrupt, even with good laws, development, justice cannot thrive,” said Justice Akinola Aguda (1923-2004).

The impeachment of the former governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako may have opened the floodgate of impeachment of state governors and other public officers at both state and federal levels.

At the beginning, it was rumoured that governors of Adamawa, Nasarawa, Rivers, Edo, Oyo and other states yet to be named would be impeached.

But now, it is no longer a rumour that Nyako has been impeached while Governor Tanko Al-Makura of Nasarawa state is in the impeachment Golgotha.

In a democratic setting, legitimacy is conferred on some people to act as leaders.

In contrast, impeachment or the removal of an official elected by the people is an exercise carried out with just a handful of the elected leaders. The banished Duke in Shakespeare’s “As You Like It” opted to say that there is the good side in every bad situation, but impeachment in most cases amounts to sowing a whirlwind or dragon teeth that hatches into bad omen in the society. That informed Gen.Yakubu Gowon and Alhaji Shehu Shagari and others to discourage former Speaker of the House of Representatives, Ghali Na’aba, and the former Senate President, Pius Ayim, from going ahead with the plan to impeach the then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, Chief Olusegun Obasanjo in 2002.

The concern of this writer is the fate of the judiciary in the face of the comic absurdity in our nation’s democratic practice. Prof. Yemi Akinseye-George (SAN) had sounded a note of warning to judges in his book, ‘Legal System, Corruption And Governance in Nigeria’, saying Gen. Ibrahim Babangida held the judiciary responsible for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.

In his annulment proclamation, Babangida said that “the judiciary has been the bastion of the hopes and liberties of our citizens. Therefore when it became clear that the courts became intimidated and subjected to the manipulation of the political process, resulting in contradictory decisions and orders by courts of coordinate jurisdiction, then the entire political system was in clear danger. Accordingly, it is in the supreme interest of the laws and order, political stability and peace that the presidential election be annulled.”

In the same vein, Gen. Sani Abacha blamed the judiciary for sacking Chief Ernest Shonekan’s Interim National Government, following Justice Dolapo Akinsanya of Lagos High Court judgment which declared the government illegal and an aberration.

The role of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Chief Judge of a state in the impeachment of a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a state governor respectively are well provided for in the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The constitution asked occupants of these positions to constitute panels to investigate allegations of “gross misconduct” properly levelled against the President or the state governor by the National Assembly or the state Assembly as the case may be.

Section 188(5) of the 1999 constitution as (amended) for instance vested the powers on the state Chief Judge to appoint 7-man panel to investigate allegations of gross misconduct of the governor of a state. While carrying out this function, the Chief Judges are also to be guided by other sub-sections of Section 188.

The mere failure to comply with these provisions of the constitution by some Chief Judges of states in the past, especially, since the advent of the current democratic dispensation in 1999 has left the careers of many of them and other judges in shambles.

The National Judicial Council which is charged by the same 1999 Constitution with the appointment and discipline of judges have always taken exception to action of judges who violate the otherwise clear provisions of the constitution.

At an emergency meeting held at Abuja on December 20, 2006, the National Judicial Council, acting with powers vested in it by Paragraph 21(d) of the Third Schedule to the 1999 constitution suspended the Chief Judges of Anambra, Plateau and Ekiti states for the partisan roles played in the impeachment of the governors of their respective states.

Those suspended were Justices Chika Okoli (Anambra), Ya’u Dakwang (Plateau), and both the Chief Judges of Ekiti state, Justice Kayode Bamisile, and the former acting Chief Judge of the state, Justice Jide Aladejana. The suspension takes immediate effect.

Chuka Okoli, former Chief Judge of Anambra State, was placed on suspension by the council for what was considered to be his inglorious act in the controversial impeachment of Peter Obi as governor of the state. Before Governor Virginia Etiaba effected the decision of the council to appoint an acting Chief Judge, Okoli even tried to discountenance the directives of the NJC.

Justice Kayode Bamisile, his Ekiti State counterpart, was also sanctioned for similar misconduct. The former Chief Judge allegedly compromised himself by appointing on the investigation panel persons believed to be cronies of the then Governor Ayodele Fayose, to probe the impeachment allegations levelled against the governor. But Justice Jide Aladejana, who stepped into Bamisile’s shoes without due process, went down with his boss in line with the council’s recommendation.

Lazarus Dakyen, the Chief Judge of Plateau State, also lost his job because of his reluctance to be guided by law in his participation in the processes leading to the removal of Governor Joshua Dariye. Before them were Okechukwu Opene and D. A. Adeniji, who were indicted for taking bribe on the matter of the senatorial election in Anambra State. Though a former Attorney-General of the Federation, Akin Olujimi, (SAN), advised President Olusegun Obasanjo against their dismissal, the President upheld the decision of the NJC. Olujimi based his advice on the procedure adopted by the council in determining the case.

They are not the only judicial officers who fell victims of the political crisis in Anambra State. Stanley Nnaji, then a judge of Enugu State High Court, was suspended in March 2004 for wrongly assuming jurisdiction on a matter outside his state. The judge had ordered Tafa Balogun, then Inspector-General of police, to remove Chris Ngige, who was then the governor of Anambra State. Nnoruka Udechukwu, the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, petitioned the NJC, complaining that the ruling was in bad faith and against the code of conduct of judicial officers.

Nnaji was probably encouraged by the reluctance of the Federal Government to implement a similar decision of the council on Wilson Egbo-Egbo, another High Court judge, for granting an injunction directing Ngige to stop parading himself as the governor. But shortly after Nnaji was accused of misconduct, Obasanjo approved Egbo-Egbo’s retirement. The latter is one of the nine judges so far retired for endorsing unnecessary ex-parte applications. But they are not the only casualties of political cases.

Five others were implicated in the 2003 Election Petition Tribunal in Akwa Ibom State. They adjudicated on the petition against the re-election of Governor Victor Attah by Ime Umanah, candidate of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, at the election. By the time the NJC concluded its job, Matilda Adamu, a judge of the High Court of Plateau State, Christopher Senlong of the Federal High Court, Lagos, and James Isede, a chief magistrate in the Edo State judiciary, had earned themselves dismissal from the judiciary because political issues. D. T. Ahura of the High Court of Plateau State and A. M. Elelegwu of the Customary Court of Appeal, Delta State, were recommended for suspension. The Federal Government, after approving the verdict of the council on the judicial officers in February 2004, sent their case files to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission for trial.

It on these grounds judges and Chief Judges who are involved in various political cases, especially as the 2015 general elections approach, are advised to learn from the eventualities which befell those of the past by doing justice in accordance with their oath office.

•Isah writes from Abuja

@punchng.com