By Sylvester Udemezue

Hon Benchers, Learned Silks, Profs, Seniors, Colleagues, and all TLCites, has anyone not observed that the NBA Presidency of Y. C. Maikyau, SAN, has from its inception, been diligent, devoted in observance of the principles of Federal Character and in promoting national integration through national spread of appointments? From my research, it appears there is not even one Committee or Panel constituted by NBA President Y. C. Maikyau, SAN, which does not, at least to a reasonable extent, meet requirements of national spread as is required by the Principles of Federal Character and National Integration.

QUESTION ARISING:

“Why hasn’t NBA President Y. C. Maikyau, SAN, in the typical Nigerian style, flooded all NBA Committees with only his Northern-Nigerian people, and offering on some flimsy excuses, as others have been seen to be doing?”, one would have been wondering! Yet, instead of indulging in such parochialism and myopism, it appears that from his Transition Committee in 2022, to all other committees and panels he has constituted or appointments he has made so far, Mr.President Y C Maikyau, SAN, has worked hard and effectively ensured that all segments of Nigeria are carried along in virtually every appointment he has made since his assumption of office in 2022, thereby ensuring there has been no predominance (in any committee) of lawyers from a few states or from a few ethnic or other sectional or religious groups to the exclusion of the others. Besides, and in order to promote national integration, Y. C. Maikyau, SAN has been seen to ensure that in all his appointments so far, there has been no discrimination shown against anyone on the grounds of place of origin, sex, religion, ethnic or linguistic association or ties. In this way, happilt, Mr Maikyau’s NBA presidency has promoted a feeling/sense of belonging and of involvement among lawyers from the various segments of Nigeria, thereby indirectly ensuring that loyalty to the NBA has overriden any sectional loyalties or loyalties to other divisive organizations within the profession.

I shall write further on this, to provide concrete facts (based on research) to buttress this assertion, as a way of encouraging current and future leaders to try to carry everyone along. Such is expected to also serve as an admonition to current leaders who are not doing well in the area of promoting national integration through faithful observance of the principles of federal character (an example is the current leadership of the NBA-SPIDEL) to retrace their steps in the interest of the NBA, the legal profession and of national unity and cohesion within the legal profession.
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POST SCRIPTUM
I read somewhere on the social media, one reaction to an earlier comment of mine, that principles of federal character (as enshrined in the Nigerian Constitution) do not apply to NBA because NBA is not a government agency or institution. With due respect, how I wish I didn’t hear such. However, there is a ready-made response, contained in the details of an article, by me, titled, “Concept Of Rotational Presidency In NBA National Elections And Burden On The ECNBA 2022 To Administer Applicable Rules Strictly And Firmly” (TheNigeriaLawyer: 13 March 2022). I am happy that segment 5 of that published piece was devoted entirely to discussions under the subhead: “Introduction of Federal Character into the NBA Constitution”, which commenced in the following words: “In recognition of the need to respect the federal character of Nigeria and to promote peace, unity, and oneness within the NBA, the Nigerian Bar Association keyed into the rotational presidency principle in the larger society….”.

Bottom line:
Observance of the federal character in all affairs and by all aspects, sections and arms of the NBA is not a matter of morality but of law and the Constitutions. Please, people should help me and read that humble piece.

Meanwhile, it’s sad, I say this with due respect, to see someone in Nigeria’s 21st-century’s 2024, still making such arguments as that “federal character doesn’t apply to NBA since NBA is not a government agency, institution”..

FURTHER QUESTIONS ARISING:

Are NMA (Nigerian Medical Association), ICAN, NSE (Nigerian Society of Engineers), PDP, APC government institutions or agencies? Has anyone noticed that each of them are experts in faithful observance of the federal character principles? Ironically, even the “famous” or “notorious” NURTW (an association of so-called “agberos”) are sticklers for observance of the federal character principles, in all its national affairs. Not to talk of national associations of tomato sellers, okada riders, and more recently even the National Association of Commercial Sex Workers — how all and each has made observance of the federal character their inviolable motto. Finally, Section 1(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, that “This Constitution is supreme and its provisions shall have binding force on all authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria”. Question: are NBA leaderships not among the “authorities and persons throughout the Federal Republic of Nigeria”? Yet, within the legal profession (those who should be the leading light) is seen someone who says, proudly, that the federal character principle doesn’t apply to the NBA. I leave it here but not like End-Of-Discussion. Noo! Discussions must continue. And as I said earlier in 2021, “we’d continue to shout from the wilderness, follow from the deserts, ruminate from the conclaves, analyze from the cubicles, wail from the rooftops, commend from downtown, assess from the upcountry, watch from the countryside and write from the hinterlands (everywhere and anywhere), until NBA…moves from good to better, and finally becomes the best”.
Respectfully,
Sylvester Udemezue (udems)
Proctor,
Reality Ministry of Justice (RMJ)
08109024556.
[email protected]. (05/01/2024)
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By Obiageli Ezekwesili 

There is Time for everything. Figuratively speaking, a person or country can be asked, “What Time is it?” with an intention to trigger a deep rumination from those who should know or care. The start of the New Year after a bloodied end of 2023 with yet another mass brutal killings of over 150 children, youth, women, and men during the Christmas week, in several villages of Plateau State did provide the context for one to ask. So, I ask first, those among my fellow citizens who have only always hoped against hope that our country will ultimately Become, “What Time is it for Nigeria?”  I next ask all those who have held and the ones currently holding political and public leadership positions in the country, “What Time is it for Nigeria?”

The blood of Fidelis Solomon and over one hundred and fifty other victims gruesomely massacred in the latest Plateau State carnage, and the blood of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Nigerians cumulatively killed in the North Central, Northeast, Northwest, Southeast, Southsouth and Southwest regions of our country are crying, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” What is your answer, fellow citizens? 

This really is the hardest question that all the people of goodwill in Nigeria must ask and answer candidly. Anyone who attempts to evade asking and confronting the inevitable tough answer to this question merely lives in delusion.

For me, it is the critical time to confront the hard conversations on how to create a viable Nigeria that transits from mere country to a nation of people who though diverse have collectively negotiated to unite themselves around a shared sense of nationalism to build a just, equitable, peaceful, orderly, prosperous, stable, resilient, and ethical society based on shared values, national vision and common identity. It is the most feasible way to avoid Nigeria becoming a truly bankrupt country with all her people.

Bankruptcy, an extremely scary word was recently used by Nigeria’s National Security Adviser (NSA), Mallam Nuhu Ribadu to describe the financial situation of the country. In his words: “We are facing very serious budgetary constraints. It is okay for me to tell you. It is fine for you to know. We have a very serious situation… We have inherited a very difficult country, a bankrupt country to the extent that we are paying back what was taken. It is serious”.

Bankruptcy in corporate use, means the death of an entity because it stops all operations and goes completely out of business. Death is the loss of soul. Like humans, a country also has a soul, and it contains the values and boundaries of what is acceptable or abhorrent behavior. For example, in Nigeria, there was a time when a certain modicum of values served as filters of what behaviors were rewarded and punished. The soul of our country began to die when public leaders became bad examples, disdaining values and rewarding vices. As the people either helplessly watched on or simply did not care and many chose to join the leaders in sliding the scale of values, the soul of Nigeria started to erode. The soul of the country has eroded to a degree where today, the value and respect for human life is closer to zero than to one.

The bankruptcy of a country and people which relegates the dignity of life is much more damaging than empty public coffers. Public leaders who do not value the life of their fellow human being bankrupt the soul of their country. The cyclical pattern of empty coffers in a country vastly endowed with the natural, human, and other resources to have emerged as a globally productive and competitive economy is a factor of Nigeria’s values bankruptcy. The Nigerian-State run by governments which are inured to the debasement of human lives is bankrupt of soul.

We shockingly arrived a time in our country when regardless of the number of mass abductions, maiming and killings of fellow humans being in our country, the Nigerian-State moves on without an iota of accountability and consequence for especially murderous criminals. We are in a time when Nigerians have normalized and accepted that their governments and leaders can conduct, enable, or ignore acts of impunity. A time in which the lines between reward and punishment are so blurred that the country exists without any form of deterring consequence for the most atrocious behaviors. 

So, even though evidence abound in our public finance data to support Ribadu’s assessment of the current state of the country’s finance, Nigeria’s reality is worse than mere financial bankruptcy. An empty treasury is the least of insolvencies that stymie Nigeria and Nigerians. The substantial and existential danger is that Nigeria as a country is totally bankrupt of values, void of soul and headed into a cataclysmic collapse of the kind that more money cannot change. What can more money do to reverse the callous acceptance of a brutish, short, and nasty existence into which majority Nigerians have now acculturated their minds? 

What will more money do for a people who no longer expect their leaders to take responsibility for basic duties including accountability for failure to produce results? What can more money do for a country that kidnapping of citizens grew into an industry nationwide? The Nigeria we all lament today is a sad example of what failure to agree and uphold a national integrity and values system can do to any people. Nigerians chose to be lethargic to how our country is governed, so our public leaders willfully distorted incentives and sanctions in our society.

Yes, the public coffers are empty, but the time now is to tackle the cause and not one of the symptoms of our national bankruptcy as a country and people. Nigeria must first overcome the existential sustainability question as our top priority agenda at this time. Is it not staggeringly alarming that Nigeria’s contemporary peer-countries are contending to lead the 21st Century by shifting global economic dominance while we in contrast are steadily regressing farther away from being a country? Nigeria’s multiple existential threats to retaining the status of country are fiercer than ever before. We now barely tick the boxes for the full status of a country, properly so called. 

A Nigeria that is fast losing most of the basic criteria that qualified us to be included in the United Nations list of recognized countries should alarm all patriots into action to save and avoid the tendentious pattern of our political class tunnelling our focus to addressing symptoms instead of their underlying causes.

Our evident state of affairs is that Nigeria now more than ever before ticks closest to the box of a failed state on the criteria of renowned Fund for Peace and Foreign Policy magazine. The index annually uses Economic, Political and Social factors to evaluate fragility and resilience of countries. Nigeria has every year over the last ten years remained within the group of 15 countries out of 170 that rank closest to fragile-failed country status. For example, on the economic front, Nigeria is entangled with endemic issues of systemic and widespread grand as well as petty corruption, “high economic inequality, economic development along group line, low growth, severe economic decline and rising extreme poverty”. 

In the context of the Fragility Index on the political front, Nigeria experiences “breakdown of capacity of government to function usually characterized by delegitimization of the state, deterioration of public services, suspension, or arbitrary application of law; widespread human rights abuses, security forces operating as a “state within a state” often with impunity, rise of factionalized elites, and rise of external political agents and foreign states”. 

On the social metrics, the index evaluates Nigeria’s “depleting social capital, loss of social cohesion, a squandering and poor management of its diversity, demographic pressures and tribal, ethnic and/or religious conflicts, massive internal and external displacement of refugees, creating severe humanitarian emergencies, widespread vengeance-seeking group grievances and sustained human flight” and such like. 

It will amount to a historical missed opportunity if Nigerians do not in 2024 collectively resist the syndrome of tunneling our focus to the lowest common denominator of our problems. The Federal Government in its current narrative about public financial distress is leading everyone down that path because even though it is true that Nigeria and Nigerians are faced with the severest fiscal distress ever experienced in recent history, our single-minded focus must be the battle for the Soul of Nigeria. No amount of money from higher oil prices, tax collections and more domestic and external debts can win this battle for us. 

More money cannot save a country and people that have lost their soul. Even then, the fact is that from all evidence available in the public domain, additional money earned by Nigeria now merely and mostly feed the avarice and voracious greed of Nigeria’s politicians anyway as the budget process has often revealed. The question that should therefore seize the minds of citizens of Nigeria and move all in the direction of the right actions is found in the timeless words of scripture; “Behold, what does it profit a man, nay, a woman and people of a country, to gain the whole world but lose their soul?” 

There is a raging battle for the Soul of Nigeria, a country which has turned into a massive killing field and mass graves overrunning with the blood of innocent children, youth, women, and men brutally murdered, battered or abducted without any consequence to the criminals. 

Every Nigerian of goodwill – regardless of ethnicity, religion, economic status, and political persuasion – knows that the Nigeria we once knew is gone. The collective momentum must now swiftly gather to the tipping point for Nigerians to compel a legally mandated National Conversation that will fundamentally negotiate and determine the value we place on our lives and the values that will uphold, preserve, and dignify a New Nigeria and Nigerians. Throughout history, dead countries commenced their dying when human life ceased to have worth. This is the kind of time Nigeria find itself, but we can by a collective will confront the demons that have dwarfed the realization of our country’s giant potentials and change the course of our checkered history. 

Could this be the ironic time a lethally flawed government of President Bola Tinubu which continues struggling with crisis of legitimacy, makes the urgent and historic choice to facilitate and enable a New Constitutional Process credibly co-led by citizens? Will the Tinubu administration surprise us and choose the good of Nigeria and Nigerians this Time? Will he take up the gauntlet at this Time and ask himself the question, “What Time is it for Nigeria?” Can Tinubu’s candid answer be that it is “The Time for me to do right by the Citizens of Nigeria?”.

There is indeed Time for everything, and Nigerians are anxiously waiting. It is Time. 

Obiageli “Oby” Ezekwesili, a former Minister of Education and Solid Minerals, is Founder and Chairperson of the Board of the School of Politics, Policy and Governance (SPPG) 

By Hashim Muhammed Suleiman – Zaria, PhD.

Do you eat, at least, three times a day? Is there aroma of cooking still coming out of your house, at least, twice a day? Do you still wear washed and ironed clothes almost everyday? Do you still drive a car while attending to your daily needs?

If yes to the above posers, not all, or even some, then I have bad news for you and for me. The dangers are coming. Asides the usual dangers of bandits, kidnappers and insurgents, the new danger coming to town is danger from below.

What does ‘danger from below’ signify? Simply put, it means dangers from unexpected places and from unexpected persons.

Well, why do I become advocate of telling you and me that dangers are real and are coming?

Simple.

The hunger in town is unprecedented and has reached unpredictable levels. The hunger has become so pervasive that ordinary poor people are beginning to exhibit criminogenic tendencies. After all, a hungry, poor and angry man has already crossed the threshold of criminality. Particularly where the three vices of poverty, hunger and anger are third person induced. According to them, third person here are those in the real positions of power and also indirectly the ones that belong to the aforementioned category in terms of discharging daily needs, perhaps as working class or being privilege to have a particular smooth-running business.

The danger that’s real and is coming is the fact that these victims of third person induced hunger, poverty and anger cannot and do not differentiate between the third person that induced the vices on them from you and me. Once you look relatively ok and contented with life, they assume you are one of those people that brought the three vices on them. Hence, you’re at the mercy of their scornful looks and words for now, pending when they’ll explode their mob mentality on you and me, even though we are also victims like them.

In fact, out of the many anecdotal evidences denoting and painting a bad scenario becoming worst, I’ll use only four recurrences to justify my assertion that dangers from below are coming fast upon us.

1. Recently, I was looking for place to park my car and to attend to some urgent things. I sighted a place by the road, near where motorcycle chaps were trading their business. I put on my right trafficking light, signalling I’ll park by my right. That single action became a trigger of unsavoury action by one of the motorcycle taxi riders. The man quickly began to push his motorcycle towards my car. I quickly dodged him by the whiskers. He wasn’t done with me. On top of his voice, he began to shout: “Kun sace kuɗin ƙasar, kun saka mu cikin bala’in yunwa, ɗan inda muke samu muyi achaɓar ma, mu samu na abinci cikin wahala, sai kunzo kun hana mu cin abinci.” That: “You people have stolen the country dry; you people have subjected us to extreme hunger such that even this small space that we used to source for the little we eat, you want to come and stop us from eating.”
   I didn’t respond to any of his invectives but instead, I simply drove off and find another place to park, a place far from them.
2. Some days ago, I managed to muster courage to go and buy few litres of petrol for my old Tokunbo car. The petrol station was swarming with people, young and old, not buying petrol but waiting for any buyer to saunter in and they descend on that unlucky buyer with begging for alms. After I bought the few litres I could afford, to enter my car became a struggle because the beggars were between me and the car, begging. I silently ignored them and found my way inside the car. Then, a very old woman stood in front of the car until the petrol attendant shouted on her.

Indeed, rather than to leave the front of my car, the old woman walked towards the driver side. On reaching my window, in cold voice, she said: “Kun kwashe kuɗin ƙasar, kun bar mu da yunwa, yanzu muna roƙon ku abun da zamu ci amma kun hana mu. Wallahi, idan muka mutu da yunwa, sai Allah ya kama ku.” That: “You people have stolen the nation’s money and left us in hunger, now we are begging you for what to eat but you won’t give us. If we die of hunger, I swear God will never allow you free.” I refused to respond because I too was and is a victim of public embezzlement.

3. Recently, a case of a man that used to visit the neighborhood of some averagely well-to-do people to cut their nails came to light. Normally, the services of the man hardly pass ₦200 per individual. However, the neighborhood took liking unto the man and we’re lavishing him with money, clothes, food and gifts. Not long after, members of the neighborhood began to receive calls from bandits demanding for large sum of money or they and their families suffer. After delicate security operations, that nail cutter was apprehended as the one giving scoops to the bandits as far away as in Kogi and Zamfara states.
4. Yesterday, a waybill was given to a driver from Jos to bring to me in Zaria. By our calculations, the driver was supposed to be in Zaria around 5 PM. However, the driver only got in touch with me close to 10 PM. I reluctantly went out for the goods. When I met the driver, he lamented that there were no passengers, hence he had to wait to get some appreciable passengers before embarking on the journey. Well, I wanted to pick the goods from his car to mine but some young guys quickly picked the two bags and dropped them into the boot of my car and the painful drama started. “Ai sai ka sallame mu mu je mu ci abinci.” “Pay us for the services so that we’ll go and eat food.” In fact, it took the intervention of the driver to calm things down from the side of the young chaps because one of them quickly stationed himself in front of my car, one at the back while the third was with me. Meanwhile, I went out to collect the waybill with nothing on me, not even my wallet.

I just used the four stated anecdotes to explain why I am telling you that dangers, dangers from below are real and are coming faster than you and me have ever thought. In as much as you look different from those hungry, angry and poverty stricken laps, the danger is real and is coming.

Allah dai ya yi mana maganin wannan bala’in.

~~~ Hashim Muhammad Suleiman, PhD

• What State Legislators should focus on in 2024

By Bayo Akinlade Esq

The Citizens Support for Lower Courts held its maiden zoom seminar on the 11th of December 2023 on the topic The Role of the Magistrate and Customary Court Judges in Nation Building, Safety And Security.

The seminar was held largely to find solutions to the problems faced by the lower courts in carrying out its constitutional role as part of the Judiciary.

It’s very saddening that after over 25 years of APC leadership in Lagos State and 8 years at the Federal level, very little has been achieved in granting citizens access to justice.

While we acknowledge the extension of the retirement ages of all superior court judges and the recent increase in budgetary allocation to the National Judicial Council (NJC), the various States (save for Osun State) have done very little in reforms that aim to increase productivity and capacity within the lower courts.

I therefore appeal to all State Judicial Service Commissions, Law Reform Commissions, Ministry of Justices in the State to take a closer look at the lower courts and apply some of the recommendations suggested below.

I will also strongly appeal to the legal community to partner with government in this regard. I therefore call on the leadership of the Nigerian Law Society (NLS), the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), MULAN, CLASFON, Catholic Lawyers Association, FIDA, AWLA and other stakeholders to work collaboratively to ensure that we enjoy democracy, rule of law and justice for all.

Summary of, and Recommendations from the Seminar

Dr. Muiz Banire, SAN who was the lead speaker emphasized on the importance of the Lower Courts as being the grassroots’ court handling well over 70% of the nation’s disputes. He noted that the way and manner of appointment and the treatment of lower courts judges was well below the acceptable standards which need urgent reforms and a change of attitudes

Dr. Banire SAN suggested the following solutions:

1. The Law providing for the qualification of Magistrates must be streamlined and specific to state that a person to be appointed a magistrate must be a person of integrity and good character who has substantial practice experience as a practicing lawyer.
2. Review in the law establishing the customary court judges in the aspect of stating that a customary court judge must be a person with “adequate means” how do you determine adequacy and what has it got to do with the administration of justice
3. Lower courts must be insulated from all forms of political interference – merit based appointments are crucial to ensuring that the lower courts are respected and effective
4. The appointment process must be transparent and made public. Names of every applicant to the bench must be published in newpapers for all to see and comment on
5. The working environment, court rooms, general facilities, working tools and technology must be improved upon. Lower court judges must have electronic law reports, computers, printers and stationary to work effectively
6. Lower Court judges need cars, the need to be given homes under the government housing schemes where they can pay in instalments, access to health care and regular salary review
7. The retirement age of lower court judges must be increased
8. Legislation must be made to take them out of the civil service structure and be regarded as judicial officers
9. Lower Court Judges ought to be given priority in the process of elevation to the higher bench
10. National Judicial Council rules regarding the need to be a chief magistrate in order to be considered for elevation as a judge must be removed
11. Appoint lower court judges based on the availability of infrastructure and increase their monetary jurisdiction considering the rate of inflation and other economic indicators. This will reduce the burden on Higher Courts
12. Creation of a special appellate court for all disputes arising from Magistrate courts and appoint deserving magistrates to those appellate courts as final arbiters to some categories of disputes like tenancy

Justice Toyin Taiwo (RTD) a former Magistrate who was elevated and retired on the high court bench spoke about improving the relationship between judges of the high court bench and the lower bench. Justice Toyin Taiwo while agreeing with the lead speaker on most issues noted that the government may not be adequately able to provide for all the needs of the lower courts, at least not all at once. Her lordship agreed that there should be special focus on the welfare of lower court judges with a view to making it better and more in line with the realities of the current economic situation.

Her lordship agreed that there is a need to improve on the relationship between judges of the higher bench and the lower courts suggesting that they should meet more often in training conferences, mentoring sessions and other opportunities, creating an atmosphere where Magistrates can approach high Court judges for advice and other social issues.
Her lordship, in responding to the unsavory treatment meted out to lower court judges by judges of the high bench wherein the lower court judges are treated like subordinates, looked down upon and literarily treated like servants of high court judges; said that she had no personal experience with such behavior but condemned it as not being ideal and unacceptable.
His lordship noted that as a lower court judge, integrity is implied. “When you want to be an adjudicator, you must be above what is implicit in the job. So any magistrate, who is not performing efficiently and effectively, regardless of the remuneration, should be sent [out]. There is no excuse for corruption. After all, you knew what your salary was going to before you joined. Except you came in with a preconceived idea that, oh, I’m going there to make money. That is it. Except you came in with a preconceived idea that I’m going there to make money. So the issue of corruption should also be tackled head on”

His lordship on the issue of judicial officers or civil servants noted that in the magistrate court law of Lagos State, they are referred to as judicial officers. “In the constitution, they’re referred to as courts of inferior record. They are not referred to as judicial officers administratively. They are civil servants. Their salary is paid on a civil service scale. In the magistrate’s court laws, they refer to only chief magistrates and magistrates. So there is a confusion. They are saying that, look, we advocate on civil and criminal matters just like the high court. We are judicial officers. We are not civil servants. But the problem is this, their salaries are paid on a civil servant cadre level.”
His lordship noted that the issue of corruption is very deep and needs to be tackled holistically

His Honor Miakpo Emiaso is a retired President of the Area Customary Court of Delta State who has written many books including a book titled “Perceived Corrupt: Memoirs of a Nigerian Judge” His Honor largely shared his experiences as a judge in relation to the theme of the seminar.

He noted that the monetary jurisdiction for judges of the lower court in Delta State where he served is 50 Million Naira. On the issue of there being too many magistrates, he opined that considering the numbers of policemen in any given State, the State can make use of more lower court judges which they can adequately provide for

On the issue of how lower court judges are treated; his honor bore his mind and stated “…The idea of somebody being discriminated against just because he serves at a level of court which is low, which is described as magistrate, which is described as chairman of customary court, does not take away the risk, the very many risks that are involved in performing that kind of job, the risk of safety to his life, because he lives within the same society as the very many persons over whom he has to preside make pronouncements as to their fate. You as the magistrate, you as the high court judge, you do not necessarily recognize them when you meet them on the road or you attend a football match and he’s sitting next to you would never know that he once was before you in your court. And so there is need to make adequate provision, no matter how much it costs the State”.
He continued; “Adequate provision must be made for all judges, irrespective of at what level they are serving. They must be provided for. Their welfare must be looked into, their security must be looked into, how they live, the environment in which they live must be secured. There cannot be too many..”.

He noted that some lower court judges have better legal qualifications and are senior at the Bar than high court judges but some high court judges’ disrespect and disregard their colleagues in the lower courts….He appeals that these discriminatory and derogatory attitudes cease henceforth

His honor noted that “…when you look at the definition of a judicial officer for purposes of discipline and control, as provided in the code of conduct for judicial officers, he [lower court judge] is a judicial officer for that purpose, to be able to control him and discipline him, he’s a judicial officer. But when it comes to purposes for remuneration, especially post retirement, he’s not a judicial officer and he cannot benefit. So you find that in most states, whereas a high court judge retires and he gets his package on the last day of his retirement, I had, for instance, had to wait for five years before my pension, my gratuity was paid to me. What was the system expecting me to survive upon for that five years? And then I had worked, served the country as a judge”.
The Seminar ended with assurances that the campaign for better working conditions and welfare of the lower courts in Nigeria would continue and would advance in 2024