November 10, (THEWILL) – On the verge of the 2019 General Election, then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen was unceremoniously booted out of office by the Muhammadu Buhari Administration. The self effacing CJN was charged with alleged false asset declaration, hurriedly arraigned before the Code of Conduct Tribunal, found ‘guilty’ and sent packing from office. His five bank accounts were ordered frozen by the tribunal.
Last week, four years later, a three man panel appointed by the Appeal Court, discharged and acquitted him of the charges and ordered that his frozen bank accounts and seized assets be restored to him.
From the judgement delivered by Justice Abba Mohammed, it was obvious that whatever evidence that was adduced against Justice Onnoghen and the manner of his trial were nowhere near legalism or jurisprudence. The Buhari administration ordered it and the tribunal obeyed its master’s voice.
According to Justice Mohammed, Justice Onnoghen, “before and during his trial, raised objections challenging the jurisdiction of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT), to hear and determine the matter same having not been brought by due process of the law, as the appellant being a judicial officer, ought to have been reported to the National Judicial Council first; whose findings and recommendations would determine the action(s) to be taken against him.”
Secondly, “The appellant also filed an application asking the chairman of the code of conduct tribunal (Umar Danladi) to recuse himself from the proceedings because of the biased conduct he exhibited during the proceedings.”
By the tribunal’s politicised judgement, the head of the Judicial arm of government, whose institution ought to work in mutual interdependence with the executive and legislative arms in a democracy, was unlawfully removed from office. The Justice institution rolled on as if nothing had happened to its head. The professional arm, the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA,’s voice was muted. The ‘see nothing, do nothing’ Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami kept mum throughout the mock trial. Except for trenchant voices of human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, who urged Malami to stop the trial and late Constitutional lawyer, Ben Nwabueze, who called for the resignation of the president and Malami because of the trial, there was hardly a viable opposition on the matter.
The opposition political parties themselves were tongue-tied. For a regime that heralded its coming to power by conducting a series of raids and arrests of judges at the unholy hours of midnight, unchallenged, Justice Onnoghen’s kangaroo trial at the beginning of Election Petition Tribunal hearing in April 2019, two months after he was suspended from office on account of the alleged fraud, was not just a blot on Buhari ‘s disastrous government but also a day of reckoning for the judicial institution
in Nigeria.
The partisan and sectional aims of the government and its goons were aptly captured in Nawbueze’s letter to the government: “ Buhari’s suspension of the CJN, is in itself, a most condemnable subversion of the Constitution. But his statement, while announcing it to the public, makes the action so absurdly subversive.”
Now, in the course of his removal from office, Justice Onnoghen kept his cool, perhaps in expectation that the day of justice on the matter would finally come. The only time he reportedly commented on his travails was at a hometown reception where he joked about the hypocrisy of flaunting power as told in a tale of a lion and a fox, whereby the former conned the latter out of his belongings and dared him to say a word, to which the fox remarked, “I know where you were going.”
Having struck a deal with the current government to settle the matter out of court and then had the appeal court acquitted him of any charges, Justice Onnoghen’s decision to approach the courts as final arbiter in his own case shows a part of him that is in sharp contrast to the government’s aim. His belief in the rule of law and ultimate triumph of justice despite the obvious intimidation meted to him and the potential damage to both his reputation and career.
Such action clearly derived from his innermost intention that justice would be served no matter how long it took. This principled stand should serve as a lesson for our leaders in all spheres of life, particularly for office holders. It takes commitment, capacity and professional integrity to man an institution. That way, the institutions of society are strengthened by the personality and the long run impact is usually unquantifiable for the society at large.
