Justice Tanko’s illegitimate imposition secured the second term for an illegitimately re-elected regime and Nigerians have suffered the consequences thereof.
By Emmanuel Ogebe
This week began with rare goodness from Nigeria that the “Chief Justice of Buhari,“ Justice Tanko Muhammad, had resigned. I use the cognomen CJB advisedly because he was Chief Justice by Buhari, of Buhari and for Buhari – and not Nigeria.
From complicity in the contrived constitutional coup that ousted his better and brought him in, Tanko came to office with a palpable integrity-deficit. What was to follow was further proof of his competency deficiency. The judge who couldn’t define “technicality” in his senate confirmation hearing, apparently was technically unfit to be Chief Justice of Nigeria and ironically unable to pilot the affairs of the apex court.
Such basic things as accommodation for justices appointed years ago languished – a basic human need that even thousands of youth corpers on national service are entitled to let alone Justices serving the nation at the most sensitive court in the land. To kill the intellectual output of the court, justices were ordered to leave their chambers by 4pm as diesel was too costly for generators. Yet this arm of government had the least principals. NASS has 100 Senators but the Supreme Court only 15 Justices just 15% the size of the Senate yet the senate did not close at 4pm because of the same diesel factor affecting all.
Tanko’s tenure also introduced judicial laziness of the worst order. For the first time in the history of Nigeria, a presidential election petition appeal against Buhari was dismissed on the spot without deliberations and time for a considered and debated ruling.
This appeared to be Tanko’s chief assignment on his precipitate propulsion and imposition as judiciary head.
Unlike his predecessor who still sat and wrote judgments, Tanko is reputed to sit only for the purposes of commandeering cases, dictating outcomes, dethroning dissent while abandoning the critical elements of writing reasoned judgments. His judicial output is nondescript compared to another Justice who reportedly wrote hundreds of judgments.
That the worst president of Nigeria appointed the worst Chief Justice in Nigeria is not a surprise. As has been said by some about Gen. Buhari himself, that Tanko would be a failure was expected but how disastrously he failed was the surprise. Never in the history of Nigeria have all 14 Justices petitioned the Chief Justice like this!
In resigning, Tanko has made his greatest contribution to the judiciary. It would be the same if Buhari did likewise. After all the petition of the 14 Justices is almost similar to the cabinet members passing a resolution to constitutionally remove a president.
Be that as it may, Justice Tanko’s illegitimate imposition secured the second term for an illegitimately re-elected regime and Nigerians have suffered the consequences thereof.
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Besides that, he furthered the northernization and Fulanization agenda. Today about 10 of the courts 14 justices are Muslim and plans are afoot to replace recently retired Christian justices with more Muslims. This means that two panels of the Supreme Court comprising five justices can be constituted to hear cases without a single Christian. This ought not to be. The citadel of Justice should be fair and reflective of our diversity as a nation as enshrined in the constitution. I am thankful that the justices showed maturity and spoke with unanimity on the desecration of the temple of Justice without being divided along religious lines or sentiment. This is as it ought to be!
During his retirement valedictory Supreme Court session, which I attended in Nigeria just last month, Hon. Justice Ejembi Eko decried what he termed as “the vandalization of the Judiciary budget”, saying he was baffled the welfare of judges remained in abject state, in spite of the increase of the budgetary allocation of the Judiciary.
The son of a past Chief Justice of Nigeria allegedly looted the court in contract deals and then absconded to Syria to join ISIS where he was reportedly killed as a terrorist. One can only imagine the horrors that have now occurred that prompted one of Nigeria’s most notable contemporary judicial minds to bemoan the “vandalization” of the judicial budget and publicly demand EFCC investigation. The acting CJN must immediately appoint an Independent Counsel to investigate the Supreme Court’s finances pursuant to his powers under the ICPC Act.
Besides the financial damage, the qualitative and jurisprudential harm to the judiciary is another sorry legacy. Just today the court of appeal in Yola reportedly reaffirmed the death sentence of a farmer Sunday Jackson who defended himself when attacked by an armed Fulani man resulting in the attacker’s death. In Tanko’s Nigeria, Fulani terrorists are killing Nigerians en masse but Nigerians who defend themselves are then sentenced to death. This should not be!
Under Justice Onnoghen, my Chibok defamation case against the Buhari regime disappeared from the cause list for months until I petitioned the CJN and it immediately resumed.
Under Tanko, my case disappeared again for three years arguably because there was no fear or respect for a Chief Justice of questionable antecedents.
While it will take long for the legal system to recover from the roguish and ruinous tenure aforesaid, the good news is that the end of an error has come though the end of that era will take a while.
Like the almajiri children used for underage voting then deported from Kano, Tanko became an executive almajiri who was used for election purposes and then dumped.
Craftiness can get you to a position but it cannot sustain you in that position if you don’t work to be worthy of it.
Justice Onnoghen and those of us who decried the criminality of his unjust removal stand thoroughly vindicated today.
Like Buhari, Tanko desperately craved a position and like Buhari when he finally got it failed to perform.
Even Gen. Abacha who set out to strangulate the judiciary to prevent Moshood Abiola from judicial victory did not harm the judiciary as egregiously as Buhari and his co-conspirator, Tanko did.
This is a lesson to all Nigeria’s mis-rulers present and intending.
Power belongs to God. What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?
Nigeria must be done with incompetent, unwell and overambitious characters of dubious age and academic pedigree.
- Emmanuel Ogebe, a lawyer, wrote in from Washington DC, USA