Would Aloma Mukhtar as Chief Justice of Nigeria and Zainab Bulkachuwa as President, Court of Appeal, see to the judiciary actually serving as the last hope of the common man? Senior Correspondent, ISHAYA IBRAHIM, asks
Aloma Mukhtar, Chief Judge of Nigeria and Zainab Bulkachuwa President, Court of Appeal.
There could be sense in the assertion by some that, so far, Aloma Mukhtar, Chief Justice of Nigeria and head of the National Judicial Council (NJC), has not disappointed observers of Nigeria’s judiciary. They add, for instance, that since her appointment in July 2012, more than four judges with questionable records have been shown the way out, with some others under probe.
Her counterpart in the Court of Appeal, Zainab Bulkachuwa, it has also been argued, has equally lived up to her billing since November 2012 when she was first appointed as Acting President, Court of Appeal (PCA). Bulkachuwa is the substantive president of the court, having had her appointment confirmed since April 17.
Notwithstanding these women’s perceived upright standing, only a few Nigerians believe that the judiciary is the last hope of the common man. And in most cases, judges are accused of selling judgment to the highest bidder. For instance, the ruling in June last year in a media ownership tussle at a Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos State, left many observers dissatisfied. But the presiding judge could care less because he had delivered the ruling as best as he understood it. Those who lost out, however, claimed he compromised in the case.
Aside these occasional incidences, Mukhtar has been straightening judges who do not live up to the demands of their offices. For example, through the NJC, two judges, Justices Charles Archibong of the Federal High Court, Lagos, and Thomas Naron of the Plateau State High Court, were the first to fall under her hammer in February 2013.
Part of the charges against Archibong was that he dismissed charges against an accused (Erastus Akingbola) without taking his plea; that he refused to release the Certified True Copy (CTC) of his ruling to the lawyers; that he issued a bench warrant on some officials of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for contempt, even when the counsel who was directed by the court to serve them an affidavit had not been able to serve the contempt application. Another charge against him was that he made scathing remarks on professional competence of some Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs); and that there were glaring procedural irregularities which showed that he did not have a full grasp of the law and procedure of the court.
For Naron, the NJC said it found proof that while he was judge in the election petition tribunal sitting in Osun, he was constantly in regular voice calls and exchanging multimedia messages (MMS) and Short Message Service (SMS) with Kunle Kalejaiye, a SAN and lead counsel to the then Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola. The judgment of the tribunal initially favoured Oyinlola until the Appeal Court justices unanimously upturned it and ruled that Rauf Aregbesola, the plaintiff in the case, was the duly-elected governor.
In line with the crusade, in February this year, the NJC’s axe also fell on two judges, Justice Gladys Olotu of the Federal High Court, Abuja, and Justice U.A. Inyang of the Abuja High Court for gross misconducts. In particular, Olotu was found wanting for failing to deliver judgment in a suit number FHC/UY/250/2003, 18 months after both sides in the case made their final addresses. The law specifies that judgment in any case should not be given later than 90 days after parties in the suit had made their final addresses.
For these daring endeavours, Mukhtar, who is only seven months away from retirement, is seen by many as re-inventing the image of the judiciary.
The same goes for Bulkachuwa
For Lagos-based lawyer, Jaka Jones, there is hope for the judiciary, with the two of them at the helm of affairs.
“The Lagos State judiciary uses more women because they cannot be bought. Seventy per cent of the judges in Lagos are women, while 30 per cent are men. And they have been doing a good job because it is not easy to buy the conscience of a woman.
“I am not saying there are no bad eggs. But it is not easy to buy the conscience of a woman, and that is why we would encourage it in all the facets of life. Let there be women,” she said.
Another Lagos-based lawyer, Esther Enwemuche, also sees hope in Mukhtar and Bulkachuwa.
“Women are focused, disciplined and result-oriented. When they take up a project, they do it with passion until they get result,” she said.
But Abdulazeez Ibrahim, a Kaduna-based lawyer, sees nothing special in having women as both the CJN and the PCA.
“It is a matter of coincidence,” he said. “The appointment of the women was not hinged on the women-friendly policies of President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration as some have been saying. It is hierarchy in the judiciary that threw them up. President Jonathan is only lucky to have the two women reaching the peak of their profession during his administration.”
And as these women sit atop Nigeria’s judiciary, many see them as the true symbol of justice – a blind-folded woman holding a set of scales and a sword. The symbol, some said, represents the goddess of justice. The Roman goddess of justice was called “Justitia” and was often portrayed as evenly balancing both scales and a sword while wearing a blindfold. She was sometimes portrayed holding the fasces (a bundle of rods around an axe symbolising judicial authority) in one hand and a flame in the other (symbolising truth) and delivering justice irrespective of whose ox is gored.