By Tonnie Iredia
With several dramatic developments such as political violence, mudslinging, commercialized processes, threats and other incidents which reflect what is known as ‘federal might’ in Nigeria during elections, yesterday’s governorship contest in Edo State can easily qualify to be the story of the moment but it is certainly not the best story for posterity. This is because there is no difference between the said Edo governorship and any other Nigerian election.
Unknown to many people, there are numerous bizarre events in our country other than electoral malpractices that are always swept under the carpet but which really deserve to be heavily publicized. One of such matters concerns the wilful destruction of the career of fellow citizens by some people in authority. The story of an innocent jurist, Walter Onnoghen, Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN (2017-2019) aptly fits in here.
Last week, the media was replete with reports that the Court of Appeal Ibadan Division had approved a proposal by the federal government to settle out of court with Justice Walter Onnoghen, a former CJN who was challenging his premature removal from office in 2019. The Code of Conduct Tribunal had convicted the former CJN for failure to correctly declare his assets as a public official. Although Onnoghen appealed the judgment at the time, it is only being heard now! One of the first things posterity stands to learn from the case is that some 5years ago, the Nigerian judiciary did nothing about the decision of the executive branch to illegally disgrace the head of their own arm of government out of office.
It was not the first time that politicians had attempted to so act, but in other similar cases, the judiciary decisively and promptly struck down the plan. In 2009 for instance, the then Kwara State Governor and the State House of Assembly had acted together to remove the Chief Judge of the State, Justice Raliat Elelu-Habeeb. The judiciary however rejected the attempt for the fundamental legal reason that the Chief Judge of a state “cannot be removed or disciplined without the input or participation of the National Judicial Council NJC.” Interestingly, Justice Walter Onnoghen was one of the 7 justices of the Supreme Court that heard the case. The Apex court had taken the same position when similar attempts were made to remove or appoint the Chief Judges of Rivers, Plateau and Ekiti states.
Each time the executive and the legislature attempted to remove a Chief Judge (CJ) without involving the Judiciary, the NJC did not only reject the action, it went on to penalize any judge who accepted to be sworn in to act as CJ because every judge was expected to be reasonable enough to reject being part of an unconstitutional transaction. For example, in 2018, the NJC at its 85th meeting expectedly rejected the purported removal of Justice Theresa Uzokwe as the CJ of Abia State. It also penalized Justice Obisike Oji “for allowing himself to be sworn in as acting chief Judge thereby colluding in, and aiding an unconstitutional process.” With the handling of the cases in Kwara and Abia, which were followed in dealing with similar cases in other states, the NJC had set a standard no one expected it to depart or shy away from no matter whose axe was gored.
But in 2019, when the then CJN, Walter Onnoghen was wrongly removed from office, the executive branch headed at the time by President Muhammadu Buhari also proceeded to appoint and swear in another justice of the Supreme Court, Justice Tanko Muhammad to serve as Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria. The NJC neither rejected Buhari’s action nor did it penalize Tanko Muhammad for accepting a constitutional breach which favoured himself. Indeed, the Judiciary relying on the technicality that usually a court trial is never stopped allowed the trial of the nation’s Chief Justice at the Code of Conduct Tribunal. The NJC also ignored the petition by the erudite Olisa Agbakoba SAN to extend to Tanko Muhammad what it applied to Obisike Oji a year earlier. Instead, the NJC after a few months took two steps, first, it recommended an extension of Tanko’s illegal acting appointment and second, recommended a few months later, that the appointment be confirmed.
Now that the federal government is seeking an out of court settlement over the removal of Justice Onnoghen, one is tempted to ponder over what the sacked CJN did not do before that he has now done to deserve the olive branch that is currently being offered to him. Could it be that the earlier charges against Onnoghen were fake? Of course, it can’t be otherwise because the government has no business seeking to settle out of court with a judge it removed from office after a conviction by its favourite court – the Code of Conduct Tribunal. The only other way to look at the subject is to accept the thinking in many circles at the time that Onnoghen was coerced to face trumped-up charges to stop him from playing any role in the election petitions that would follow the nearby 2019 presidential elections.
Posterity would consume much time to marvel at the role played by certain actors in the saga. To start with, why was the nation’s top most judge subjected to media trial? Onnoghen was accused of submitting an inaccurately completed assets declaration form to the Code of Conduct Bureau. It was also said that the former CJN naively admitted that it was an error on his part which made the government feel justified to arraign him to face prosecution at the Code of Conduct tribunal (CTC). Virtually everyone perceived Onnoghen as a crook especially as government indicated that it had uncovered many of his hidden assets which reportedly included 55 houses and several bank accounts. It was in fact stated that the former CJN in breach of extant laws, maintained foreign accounts.
Forgetting its foremost ethical value of balance and objectivity which demands that all the sides to a story must be published, the media indiscriminately opened all its organs for several uninformed commentaries. Some legal professionals actively joined in the unfortunate media trial which they knew to be an undue interference in the process of justice delivery. In fact, one senior judge who claimed to have been in practice forabout half a century said his own assets were a little fraction of what the former CJN allegedly had in his accounts. Yet, no one, be it journalists, lawyers or average citizens bothered to get the views of the suspect who had become indicted before trial. The nearest the nation got to hear from the accused was what people said Onnoghen claimed to have said.
In addition, the nation did not get to know how the relevant law expected Onnoghen’s alleged offence to be handled. Meanwhile Section 3(d) of the Code of Conduct Bureau and Tribunal Act which is a public document specifically provided that where a person who failed to document all his assets makes a written admission of his non-compliance, no reference to the Tribunal was necessary. In other words, the immediate intention of the law was to first ensure compliance rather than rush to punish non-compliance without an opportunity for the wrong doer to effect corrections to his error. If so, why was Onnoghen summarily sent to the tribunal for prosecution instead of being offered a second opportunity to collect fresh forms to include his alleged previously undisclosed assets.
There are more important questions. First, why were some publicity-seeking senior lawyers calling for Onnoghen’s resignation as if that was the exact punishment legally prescribed for anyone with incomplete assets’ declaration? Second, why did analysts keep quiet when it became clear during the kangaroo trial that government was unable to identify up to 5 of the 55 houses earlier said to belong to the former CJN?
Third, why did the protagonists of ‘Onnoghen must be punished’ go dumb when it was revealed that what the former CJN only operated government approved domiciliary accounts for public officials and not foreign accounts?
Fourth, why was Buhari’s government not condemned for what my favourite Professor Milo Moro would describe as devious opprobrium? Fifth, will the present government that has shown good disposition to Onnoghen’s case, appropriately immortalise him through the naming of one major national edifice after him? Anything less would be ungodly.
