AFRICA IN THE 2010S DECADE

Lawyers played a centre stage in the history of the world and of Africa. In a separate instalment, Africa Legal News features female lawyers who shaped Africa. In this two-part instalment, we highlight their male counterparts. In the first issue, we look at PLO Lumumba, Jordan Kinyera and Chidi Odinkalu. We also feature Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of South Africa and the late President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.

Lawyers played a centre stage in the history of the world and of Africa. In a separate instalment, Africa Legal News features female lawyers who shaped Africa. In this two-part instalment, we highlight their male counterparts. In the first issue, we look at PLO Lumumba, Jordan Kinyera and Chidi Odinkalu. We also feature Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of South Africa and the late President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.

1. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (Kenya)

Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, better known as Professor PLO Lumumba is a lawyer based in Kenya.  He served as Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from September 2010 to August 2011. He has also been Director of the Kenya School of Laws.

Lumumba has been an outspoken advocate for transparency and democracy, and this has earned him awards as well as enmity by the other African States. In 2018, he was denied entry into Zambia where he was due to address a forum on China Africa relations.

 He is the author of Kenya’s Quest for a Constitution: The Postponed Promise, Call for political hygiene in Kenya and many other works on law and politics.

Lumumba holds a PhD in Laws of the sea from the University of Ghent in Belgium.

2. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (South Africa)

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi is a lawyer and writer from South Africa. Ngcukaitobi is a member of the South African Law Reform Commission.

Ngcukaitobi has been a critical part of the recent Southern African political and legal history. Ngcukaitobi represented the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters in a case arguing for the State Capture Report to be released in the North Gauteng High Court. He was also part of the legal team challenging Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections.

 Ngcukaitobi is the author of The Land Is Ours: South Africa’s First Black Lawyers and the Birth of Constitutionalism.

 Ngcukaitobi also worked extensively on the public interest law sector at the Legal Resources Centre, a leading South African public interest law centre where he became Director of its Constitutional Litigation Unit.

He holds a BProc, LLB (Unitra), LLM (Rhodes) and LLM (London School of Economics).

3. Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

Robert Mugabe was the Prime Minister and former President of Zimbabwe, having led the county to independence from white settler rule in 1980. The 2010s finally saw the steeping seen of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, a man of many professions including law, economics, public management and education

Mugabe stepped down after a military-led uprising in2018 and was to die two years later in September 2019. His removal from office has been a subject of debate on constitutionalism.

Part of the AfricaLegalNews Africa in the 2010s Decade Series

Lawyers played a centre stage in the history of the world and of Africa. In a separate instalment, Africa Legal News features female lawyers who shaped Africa. In this two-part instalment, we highlight their male counterparts. In the first issue, we look at PLO Lumumba, Jordan Kinyera and Chidi Odinkalu. We also feature Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi of South Africa and the late President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe.

1. Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba (Kenya)

Patrick Loch Otieno Lumumba, better known as Professor PLO Lumumba is a lawyer based in Kenya.  He served as Director of the Kenya Anti-Corruption Commission from September 2010 to August 2011. He has also been Director of the Kenya School of Laws.

Lumumba has been an outspoken advocate for transparency and democracy, and this has earned him awards as well as enmity by the other African States. In 2018, he was denied entry into Zambia where he was due to address a forum on China Africa relations.

 He is the author of Kenya’s Quest for a Constitution: The Postponed Promise, Call for political hygiene in Kenya and many other works on law and politics.

Lumumba holds a PhD in Laws of the sea from the University of Ghent in Belgium.

2. Tembeka Ngcukaitobi (South Africa)

Advocate Tembeka Ngcukaitobi is a lawyer and writer from South Africa. Ngcukaitobi is a member of the South African Law Reform Commission.

Ngcukaitobi has been a critical part of the recent Southern African political and legal history. Ngcukaitobi represented the opposition Economic Freedom Fighters in a case arguing for the State Capture Report to be released in the North Gauteng High Court. He was also part of the legal team challenging Zimbabwe’s 2018 elections.

 Ngcukaitobi is the author of The Land Is Ours: South Africa’s First Black Lawyers and the Birth of Constitutionalism.

 Ngcukaitobi also worked extensively on the public interest law sector at the Legal Resources Centre, a leading South African public interest law centre where he became Director of its Constitutional Litigation Unit.

He holds a BProc, LLB (Unitra), LLM (Rhodes) and LLM (London School of Economics).

3. Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)

Robert Mugabe was the Prime Minister and former President of Zimbabwe, having led the county to independence from white settler rule in 1980. The 2010s finally saw the steeping seen of long-time leader Robert Mugabe, a man of many professions including law, economics, public management and education

Mugabe stepped down after a military-led uprising in2018 and was to die two years later in September 2019. His removal from office has been a subject of debate on constitutionalism.

Robert Mugabe made a tremendous influence, both negative and positive, on Pan-Africanism and back empowerment as well as on legal and political developments in Zimbabwe and the Third World in his lifetime.

Mugabe earned two law degrees in prison in the pre-independence days, namely a Bachelor and a Master of Laws from the University of London (External Programme) among other qualifications.

4. Jordan Kinyera (Uganda)

Jordan Kinyera is a lawyer from Uganda. He attained his law degree after seeing his family lose its land. The High Court of Appeal in Uganda finally ruled in his father’s favour in 2019, finalising over two decades of legal disputes. He is now involved in assisting other people engaged in similar conflicts. His case is compelling in Africa, where several people lose land in disputes with corporates or to wealthy individuals who can afford to hire big-name lawyers.

5. Chidi Odinkalu (Nigeria)

Chidi Odinkalu is a lawyer and human rights activist from Nigeria. He has also worked as a law lecturer and writer. He was chairperson of Nigeria’s National Human Rights. He advised various international organisations such as the Ford Foundation, World Bank, African Union and International Council for Human Rights Policy, Geneva; and many others. In 2018, he co-authored Too Good to Die: Third Term and the Myth of the Indispensable Man in Africa .

Odinkalu is currently the Senior Managing Legal Officer for the Open Society Foundation’s Open Society Justice Initiative.

Odinkalu holds a PhD in law from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

Credit: https://africalegalnews.com/2020/01/10-influential-male-lawyers-who-defined-africas-decade-part-1-of-2/

Hon. Justice Kayode Eso, JSC nailed it.  He was a man never known to trifle with words. That much he did in the 1986 case between the Governor of Lagos State and Chief Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu. It was another case of government’s disobedience to court’s orders.

His words: “When we allow the very foundation of adjudication to be eroded with disdain then we should be ready to say “goodbye” to Rule of Law, Peace, and Orderliness and welcome to “anarchy”, and “chaos”, and the whole society suffers for it.”

Eso’s words resonate even as questions continue being asked over the recent suspension of Lady Azuka Azinge as acting Registrar-General of the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC).

On January 6, a Motion on Notice emanating from the Exparte Order leading to her removal will be heard at the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT). The question now is what was the urgency in having her suspended?

An ex parte application in law is an application that is taken in cases of extreme urgency, where failure to take it will result in destroying of the res (subject matter) or where an irreparable damage could be done if not granted.

In the case at hand, what damage could have been done if the order directing the suspension of Azuka Azinge was not made? Certainly the matter at hand is not such contemplated by the law as requiring the preservation of a res.

Little wonder why the President of Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Mr. Paul Usoro, SAN described the entire process as an abnormality.

Usoro in his New Year speech remarked that the process leading to the removal is an abnormality that does not portend good for the security of tenure of our public officers.

“Economic growth can only be attained in an atmosphere of predictability and certainty. This new practice of tripping and removing our public officers through contrived CCT ex-parte orders corrodes confidence in the system.”

Other Nigerians have been unanimous in their objection to the speed/urgency of the entire proceedings.

A staff of the Commission who spoke under anonymity had this to say: “Ordinarily, a court must hear the other side before determining a matter. And so having granted an ex parte order which has a 14 day life span, the other side must be heard, hence the 6th January date. The public outcry is, why make such an order at that stage? It’s as if waiting for 6th January will make the heavens fall or the subject matter (res) destroyed; which are the principles guiding ex parte applications.

“These and other steps taken by the CCT leaves a reasonable person watching the proceedings to have an impression of likelihood of bias on the part of the Umpire, hence the huge outcry.”

A motion ex parte is an application which can be heard in the absence of the other party. When an ex parte order is made, the other party is put on Notice.

Meanwhile, the life span of an ex parte order is 14 days. Consequently, between 24th December 2019 when it was made to 6th January, 2020 (within 14 day period/life span of an ex parte order) the matter should be heard and an ultimate decision taken on the matter after hearing the other side.

That is the practice and procedure. The return date for the ex parte application has to be 6th January, 2020, otherwise the order will expire. The question again is why the hurry to shove her out of office?

Speaking on the matter, Chairman of Nigerian Bar Association Abuja branch, Folarin Aluko joined in condemning the procedure adopted by the CCT.

Aluko in a statement released on the 31st December, 2019, observed that there were grave concerns among members of the public about whether the Code of Conduct Tribunal, an organ of the Executive, is being used to achieve partisan objectives as it would be clearly against Nigerian Law for the Tribunal to direct the Hon. Minister of Trade & Investment to suspend and/or replace a Registrar General of the Corporate Affairs Commission.

 The statement reads: “By virtue of Section 8 of the Companies and Allied Matters Act (CAMA), it is only the Corporate Affairs Commission that has the statutory mandate to appoint the Registrar General of the Commission. This power is granted by the CAMA to the exclusion of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his agent, the Minister of Trade and Investment.

“Interrogating the issue further, Section 11 (1) (c) of the Interpretation Act goes on to state that where a law confers a power of appointment, that power also includes the power to remove or suspend. By implication of a community reading of these two provisions, only the Corporate Affairs Commission can suspend or remove an Acting or substantive Registrar General. The rationale for this is not farfetched- there is clearly a need to insulate the operations of the Corporate Affairs Commission, and by implication, the economy, from the politics and bureaucracy of the Civil Service.

“This position which has been affirmed by our Courts, was recently tested in a public interest lawsuit filed on behalf of the Intellectual Property Lawyers Association Nigeria, represented by the firm of Trumann Rockwood Solicitors. I was privileged to appear as Lead Counsel in that suit.

“Although established in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) as an agency of the Executive, the Tribunal is also a quasi-judicial body with a narrow scope and limited jurisdiction. The Tribunal is subject to the rule of law and is bound to observe the principles of Natural Justice and Fair Hearing.

“It is trite that justice must not only be done, it must manifest and be seen to have been done. The Tribunal should not place itself in a situation where the confidence reposed in it by the public to do justice is eroded.”

Meanwhile, Lawyers Network Against Corruption (LAWNAC) have disclosed that it has filed a Freedom of Information Act Request to determine whether the administrative predication for the charge against Lady Azinge is in compliance with the provisions laid out in the 5th Schedule to the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act and the Code of Conduct Practice Directions 2017.

In a statement released on the 3rd January, 2019, via its official Twitter handle @lawnacng, LAWNAC said it is concerned about the allegations of bias, ethnic targeting and abuse of process in the commencement and prosecution of charges against Lady Azuka Azinge by the Code of Conduct Tribunal.

The organisation said it is of the firm view that justice must not only be done, it must manifestly be seen to have been done. This means that the Code of Conduct Tribunal must never place itself in a situation where the confidence reposed on it by the public to do justice to all parties before it in all circumstances is eroded. The stream of justice must be kept clean and clear without any suspicion of pollution.

“LAWNAC is more particularly concerned about these weighty allegations following the shocking use of ex parte orders by the Tribunal, noting that the Court of Appeal recently chided the Tribunal and the Chairman for conduct creating a likelihood of bias.

“LAWNAC is concerned that the current trajectory on which the Tribunal is headed is against the spirit and letter of the laws establishing the Tribunal and will derail the Tribunal and erode any public confidence reposed in the Tribunal.

“LAWNAC recognizes that the Learned Justices of the Court of Appeal have had course to reprimand the Chairman of the Tribunal in the case of Rasheed Owolabi v. FRN, Suit No: CA/A/623C/2016 decided on the 2nd March, 2018, where the Court of Appeal overturned the ruling of the Tribunal headed by Chairman Danladi Umar against the Defendant, Mr. Owolabi.

“In the words of the Court of Appeal: ‘The pertinent question is whether in the circumstances of this case, it may not be inferred that right-minded persons of the public would have the impression that there is a real likelihood of bias against the appellant. Any reasonable man observing the proceedings will definitely have the impression, in the prevalent circumstances of this case, that the appellant will not get a fair trial from such a Tribunal whose chairman has had some grievance or embattlement with the appellant.’

“It is in fact noteworthy that the chairman was not completely absolved of blame in the petition filed against him to EFCC by the Appellant. Though the EFCC, after investigation had concluded that there were no sufficient facts to prosecute the chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Umar over the allegation of graft made against him by the Appellant, yet he was vilified for ‘a most unethical and highly suspicious conduct in his part” for the chairman meeting privately with the Appellant in his chambers at the Tribunal. It is also significant to note that the Personal Assistant to the Chairman is being prosecuted for some amount of money paid into his account by the Appellant over the same matter.’ See E.F.C.C. Investigation Report at pp. 68-69.

“Part of the EFCC Report specifically stated thus: ‘There are indications that the tribunal Chairman might have demanded and collected money from the complaint through his said personal assistant. However, efforts made to recover the telephone handset used by Justice Umar proved abortive, as he claimed that he had lost the telephone in 2012. This has made it impossible to subject it to independent scientific analysis with a view to corroborating the allegation. Justice Umar also admitted that he met privately with the complaint in his chamber at the tribunal. This is unethical and highly suspicious conduct on his part.” (See p. 69 of the Record of Appeal)

The Lawyers Network Against Corruption is a network of Legal Practitioners in public and private practice from all 36 states of the Federal Republic of Nigeria dedicated to the fight against corruption Nigeria, and especially in the legal profession and the justice delivery sector.

Having fled the conflict in Cameroon’s English-speaking regions, a number of Cameroonian child refugees are becoming victims of human trafficking, including being marketed as maids through Facebook

By Philp Obaji JR

For over a week in December, Stan Wantama used his Facebook page to upload photographs of teenage Cameroonian girls, who fled the conflict in their country’s Anglophone regions to border communities in southern Nigeria, as he sought interest from people willing to pay to have them as maids.

In one post, he put up a photograph of a young girl he said was 16 years of age and asked Facebook users interested in having her as a maid to contact him by sending a private message via the social media platform or through an email he displayed in the post.

In another post, Wantama uploaded an image of a girl he claimed is “intelligent, hardworking and about 17,” and asked persons interested in hiring her as a maid to “inbox me.”

I reached out to Wantama through the email he gave, asking him about the background of the girls he displayed on Facebook and the process of getting a maid from him. He did respond to my email, but without going into details in many areas.

“They could come from anywhere,” he said, in response to my question regarding where the girls he offers as maids come from. 

With regard to the average age of the girls Wantama offers as maids, he replied by saying “it depends on what age range you want.”

According to Wantama, anyone interested in having any of his maids has to first send him a private message via Facebook or an email stating his or her name, address, phone number, and occupation.  

“No fee is paid immediately,” Wantama, whose profile photo on Facebook is a drawing of a young man in black and white colours, told me. “You are to pay 30,000 naira (about $82) every month to the maid as her salary and agree to give her accommodation and a day off every week.”

“For the first month, you are to pay her salary after she works for a week,” Wantama added.

In response to my question about if there was someone available to work immediately as a maid, Wantama sent a photograph of a girl he said is a 13-year-old Cameroonian, whom I’ll call Glory, living in Adagom, a small community inside Ogoja Province in Nigeria’s south-central Cross River State, along the border with Cameroon. Wantama said the parents of the girl approved of her becoming a maid. He rejected my request to speak directly with the parents or any available relative of the girl by telling me “you have to speak [to any of them] through us.”

In another email to Wantama two days later, I asked if the girls who currently had their photos displayed on his timeline were still available as maids, he replied by saying, “on Facebook, we take out the photo of anyone who has been given away as a maid. We’ve taken a couple away.”

A Facebook user, who reacted to one of Wantama’s posts, appeared to confirm what he said about deleting photos of girls who’ve been given away as maids by telling me in a chat via Facebook Messenger, “I think I have seen some other photos of young girls which I no longer see again.”

It’s difficult to ascertain how many Facebook users Wantama’s posts have reached, as his friends are not visible to the public. Nevertheless, his activities on the site did gain some public interest.

In one post in which he displayed a photograph of a teenage girl and offered to give her away as a maid, one person commented by saying, “I’m interested.” Wantama then replied, “check your inbox,” apparently insinuating that he had sent a private message to the Facebook user on how to go through the process of having one.

It took until the following day for Facebook to respond to my email reporting Wantama’s activities on the platform. In her reply to my email at about 10 p.m., Nigerian time, Kezia Anim-Addo, Head of Communications for Facebook in Africa, told me the company was “currently looking into this at the moment.” Wantama’s account was suspended at about the period of Anim-Addo’s reply, nearly 29 hours after Facebook’s attention was drawn to his inappropriate posts. The delay in taking action enabled Wantama’s posts to gain more views and a reaction to one of his posts from a Facebook user.

Yandex, the Russian tech company which provided the email Wantama displayed in a number of his Facebook posts did not respond to my request for comments for this article.

In his replies to my emails, Wantama didn’t give much details about the girls he had advertised on Facebook but, by mentioning where the 13-year-old girl in his first email lives, I thought I had enough information to pursue an investigation into his activities.

I travelled to Ogoja shortly after my second email chat with Wantama. The town is home to thousands of Cameroonians who are taking refuge in communities like Adagom and Okende.

In November 2016, lawyers from Cameroon’s English-speaking took to the streets to protest against the government’s decision to appoint Francophone magistrates in Anglophone courts, despite lacking training in British common law. Teachers in the Northwest and Southwest regions also called sit-in protests in response to the appointment of French speakers in Anglophone schools who lacked the ability to communicate fluently in English.

But it was the declaration of a new state called Ambazonia on October 1 2017 by separatists that angered the Cameroonian government. Security forces began a brutal crackdown on protesters, killing people and burning communities.

A number of armed groups began to retaliate, worsening the crisis and contributing to the displacement of hundreds of thousands of Anglophones who make up 20 percent of Cameroon’s more than 24 million inhabitants and often complain of being marginalised.

Nearly 10,000 of these refugees occupy temporary shelters built with mud bricks and covered with corrugated iron sheets in refugee settlements in a few locations in Ogoja. Many others live in host communities.

In Adagom community, where Wantama had told me Glory lives, I showed the photographs of the 13-year-old and other girls which he had uploaded on his Facebook page to dozens of people in the settlement. While no one initially recognized Glory, a number of persons said they had seen two of the other girls in the camp a few months back.

“I don’t think they still stay here,” one man, who said he had seen the girls on numerous occasions in the past, told me but he couldn’t confirm whether or not the girls lived in the settlement alone or with their families. “They probably have moved into the host community.”

After spending more than six hours moving round the settlement asking if anyone knew the girls whose photographs appeared on Wantama’s Facebook page, a young girl who initially said she had never met Glory, came back to tell me she knows the teenage girl very well and was ready to take me to where she lives.

We arrived Glory’s home a few minutes before 7 pm. The teenager lives with her middle-aged parents and her 15-year-old older sister in a two room mud house not very far away from the refugee settlement.

Eighteen months ago, Glory and her family fled their home in the southwestern Cameroonian town of Akwaya after soldiers stormed their compound and began to burn houses. They arrived in Adagom after spending days in the bush, near the Nigerian border, trying to escape the violence in their country.

A year after Glory’s family began to live in Adagom, a middle-aged man, who met the young girl’s father in a local carpentry workshop, where the Cameroonian works, offered to connect his daughters to families who’ll assist them return to school after learning that he had two female children who were not able to complete their secondary education over lack of funds. He later got to the home of the Cameroonian family and took photos of the two girls.

“He gave his name as Stanley,” Glory’s father said of the middle-aged man suspected to be Wantama (in Wantama’s first reply to my email, he stated his full name as Stanley Wanta Wantama). “He said he could help give my daughters as maids to families who will send them in school and not pay for their services.”

“The photo you showed to me is the same photo he took of my daughter,” he added.

Glory’s father was told by Wantama that he lives in Ogoja town where he works as a public servant, but his profile on Facebook tells a different story. 

Wantama wrote on the social media platform that he lives in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, and is a self employed businessman. While he once said to Glory’s father that he schooled in Ogoja town, he indicated on Facebook that he had his secondary and tertiary education in the north-central Nigeria city of Lokoja.

When I requested to see Glory, her father told me that someone working for Wantama took her to Makurdi, another city in north-central Nigeria, where she is expected to work as a house help to a family of eight persons.

“They left in the morning,” Glory’s father said. “I was assured that she’ll be allowed to return to school as from September 2020.”

After informing him that Wantama offered his daughter to me as a maid in exchange for monthly payments, Glory’s father said he was shocked to learn of the development and admitted making a mistake trusting the man he thought will “bring smiles to the family.”

“We never discussed paying anyone,” Glory’s 50-year-old father said. “The man (Wantama) completely deceived me.”

Glory’s father’s biggest regret is not listening to a colleague who warned him about trusting Wantama.

In February, Wantama promised to take the 16-year-old daughter of Collins, who works in the same carpentry shop as Glory’s father, to Calabar to work as a house help to a nuclear family of four. He had assured Collins that the teenager will be allowed to further her education while serving her hosts.

But in the six months the teenager lived in Calabar, she was not only denied the opportunity to attend school but also forced to work for 12 hours, six days a week, as a sales girl in a small shop owned by the family.

“She worked from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. everyday except on Sundays and was only fed in the morning.” Collins, who—like Glory’s father—fled the fighting in southwest Cameroon with his wife and four children in 2018, told me. “If she wasn’t up at 4 a.m. everyday, her madam will beat her up using any object she finds.”

At the end of each month, Collins’ daughter received 15,000 naira (about $41) from the family she served, but Wantama often showed up to take almost 80 percent of the money. The girl’s parents were not aware of such payment at the time.

Fed up with being made to work for very long hours daily without having enough food and rest, Collins’ daughter ran out of where she lived one Friday morning in August to a bus station where she boarded a vehicle that took her to Ogoja, having saved enough money for the journey. She eventually made it back to her parents in Adagom.

“She looked so immatiated when she returned,” Collins said of his daughter. “There were marks all over her body that showed the high level of torture she suffered in the hands of the people she served.”

It was based on what his daughter experienced in Calabar that made Collins advice Glory’s father not to let his own daughter move away with Wantama.

“I wish he (Glory’s father) had listened to me,” Collins said. “He just didn’t want to believe anything my daughter and I told him about Stanley [Wantama].”

Life is generally difficult for Cameroonian refugees in Adagom, where thousands of people face huge challenges getting jobs and accessing basic social services.

An Emergency Food Security Assessment conducted a year ago by the United Nations found that more than 80 percent of Cameroonian households in refugee settlements and those in host communities are  “severely or moderately food insecure.” 

According to the U.N., three in four refugees may be resulting to highly risky measures like child labor and survival sex to cope with the demands of life in where they live. Many, like Glory, end up in the hands of persons with a history of exploiting vulnerable people.

Attempts by Glory’s father to reach Wantama by phone were unsuccessful. The man, who now appears to be in the business of child trafficking, did not respond to my email for comments about the status of Glory. The girl’s father, who now wants his daughter to return to her family, vowed to keep trying to speak with him.

“Whenever I can get to him, I’ll tell him to make sure my daughter is back home immediately,” he said. “She can’t be a slave to anyone.”

Source: Sahara Reporters

By Aisha Ahmed

The Kano State Task Force on Fake and Counterfeit Drugs has impounded two trucks loaded with fake and expired drugs, a statement from the health ministry said on Saturday.

The statement signed by Malam Ismail Gwammaja, Public Relations Officer of the ministry, said that the Chairman of the task force and Commissioner for Health, Dr Aminu Tsanyawa, led the hunt for the trucks on receiving an information about them.

It said that the trucks were found in an incomplete building at Unguwar Dabai in Dala Local Government.

The statement said that government was committed to curbing the sale and consumption of illicit and fake drugs “especially by youths and women in the state”.

It said that government was strict on its resolve to end the rampant use of the substances and had ordered that the drugs market in Sabon Gari be moved to Dangwauro in Kumbutso Local Government.

The Commissioner appealed to Kano residents to complement government’s efforts toward a drug-free society by reporting suspicious acts and movement of people dealing with such drugs.

(NAN)

No president has secured so many important judgeships so quickly – and progressive say the damage will be lasting

Critics of Donald Trump make much of the fact that his legacy will forever bear the stain of impeachment, whatever the outcome of the prospective Senate trial next month.

But Trump is positioned to bequeath a much more substantial legacy, one that progressive activists and civil rights advocates warn will harm the cause of equality in the United States for decades to come.

That legacy is a judiciary remade deeply conservative in Trump’s own image. In securing the confirmation of his 50th appeals court judge earlier this month, Trump cemented his status as the most accomplished sponsor of federal judges in the modern history of the presidency.

No president has secured so many important judgeships as quickly. Barack Obama managed to confirm only 55 appeals court judges – in eight years. Trump’s presidency is not yet three years old.

“Among conservatives, this is probably one of the biggest bright spots,” said Josh Blackman, a professor at the South Texas College of Law specializing in the supreme court and constitutional law. “Not all conservatives are happy with a lot of things Trump has done, but on judges he’s killing it. It’s an across-the-board success that we’ve seen in this area.”

With the US supreme court ruling in only a small fraction of federal cases each year, appellate and district court judges actually wield immense power over some of the most urgent issues in American life, from reproductive rights to voting rights to anti-discrimination protections and action on the climate crisis.

Carl Tobias, a professor at Richmond School of Law specializing in federal judicial selection, called Trump’s performance on judges – with the notable assistance of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, and outside groups such as the Federalist Society – “an amazing accomplishment”.

“He has really made an imprint on the federal appeals courts,” said Tobias. “About a quarter of the active judges by now have been appointed by him. And that’s really substantial.”

Trump continued to run up the score on judges until the last minutes of the congressional calendar year. As the House debated impeachment, the Senate went to work on a final 13 Trump nominees to serve on district courts, one level below the appellate courts.

With a dozen confirmations last Thursday alone, Trump hit an end-of-year tally of 133 district court judges out of 677 total, 50 appeals court judges out of 179 total, and two US supreme court justices out of nine total.

“While Democrats in the House wasted all their time this week on a partisan impeachment,” Vice-President Mike Pence tweeted jubilantly on Friday morning, “the Senate confirmed 13 new judges making that a total of 185 amazing judges picked by President @realDonaldTrump!”

Legal analysts have blasted Trump and McConnell for allowing an unprecedented number of nominees to advance who have staked out extreme philosophies or been flagged as unqualified by the American Bar Association (ABA), the country’s largest non-partisan coalition of lawyers.

Progressive activists additionally express alarm at the relative youth of many Trump nominees, who assume lifelong appointments upon confirmation.

“The American people should be deeply troubled and scared as to the status of their rights and liberties over the next three to four decades,” said Daniel Goldberg, legal director at the progressive Alliance For Justice.

“It’s critical that the next Democratic president prioritize the courts like never before. While Donald Trump has been able to get his judges confirmed, we have never seen progressives as galvanized on the court issue as they are now.”

The confirmation this month of Sarah Pitlyk to the district court in St Louis and Lawrence VanDyke to the 9th circuit court of appeals, both of whom were rated unqualified by the ABA, should give Americans cause for alarm, said Goldberg, whose group has produced the report Trump’s Attacks on Our Justice System.

Pitlyk “spent her career fighting IVF and surrogacy” and VanDyke “has spent his career fighting environmental protections, women’s rights and LGBTQ rights”, Goldberg said.

Trump’s work on the courts would not have been possible without the assistance of McConnell, who blocked Obama judicial nominees and then relaxed Senate rules to accelerate the installation of Trump nominees. Another key Trump partner in the effort is the Federalist Society, the conservative legal group that has vetted judicial candidates and spoon-fed them to the White House.

Blackman said that former Senate majority leader Harry Reid’s 2013 decision to take the so-called “nuclear option” and abolish a rule requiring 60 votes to approve federal judicial appointments – a decision that followed unprecedented stalling on judicial appointments by then minority leader McConnell – had made it easier to confirm judges with ideologies outside the mainstream.

“I think because the nuclear option is gone, you no longer have to appeal to 60, you can appeal to 50,” said Blackman. “And I think with that, you have less of a need to appeal to the moderates, so I definitely think the tilt of the nominees is definitely away from the center.”

Tobias said that Trump’s judicial record could help pave the way to his re-election.

“I think for many Republicans, who don’t agree with a number of the Trump policies, they are willing to tolerate that in order to influence the judiciary,” he said. “Especially Evangelical Christians, who are substantially responsible for his election.

“Issues like abortion, LGBTQ rights, religious freedom – the judges are being chosen to take a particular view on those issues.”

Culled from: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/dec/25/trump-judiciary-judges-legal-america