On July 16, 2012, Hon. Justice Aloma Maryam Mukhtar, born 20th November 1944 in Lagos, made history by becoming the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria automatically earning the national award of Grand Commander of the Order of Niger, GCON (the second-highest in the country) by His Excellency, President Goodluck Jonathan, GCFR.
It was a feat that had never been achieved by any woman in Nigeria before her.
She attended Gibson & Welder Law School and graduated in 1966 before being called to the English Bar in the same year. She was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1967.
Mukhtar joined the Northern Nigerian Ministry of Justice as a Pupil State Counsel and Magistrate becoming the first female magistrate in the North Eastern Government from 1969-1973.
In 1973, she moved to Kano State to be the Chief Registrar of the State Judiciary, and five years later, in 1977, she was made a judge of the Kano High Court, making her the third female judge in Nigerian history after, Modupe Omo-Ebo in 1969 and Elsie Oguntoye in 1976, the first female judge from the North and at 32 years of age, the youngest judge in the country.
Justice Mukhtar rose in the Kano state judiciary to become the second-ranked judge. But she stalled there. Whenever the time came for the appointment of a new chief judge (in 1982 and 1985), she was bypassed for junior male colleagues.
Her Lordship was nominated as a Justice of Nigeria’s Court of Appeal in 1987. She served in this position for 17 years and in June 2005, she was elevated to Supreme Court of Nigeria.
In 2012, Honorable Justice Mukhtar was sworn in as Chief Justice position of Nigeria and held the position to 2014 when she reached the mandatory retirement age of 70 for judicial officers.
In addition, she served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of The Gambia from 2011-2012, in an interim position.
Honourable Justice Mukhtar was the first female attorney from Northern Nigeria; the first female Chief Registrar in Nigeria; the first female judge in Northern Nigeria; the first female Court of Appeal justice; the first female justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria and the first female Chief Justice for Nigeria.
After leaving the Supreme Court of Nigeria, Her Lordship joined the National Council of State, the highest advisory body in Nigeria, as its first female permanent member.
She turned 80 today.
