by Abdulaziz Olatunde Bakare
At last, the Ag.President Yemi Osinbajo has forwarded the name of Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen to the Senate for confirmation as the Chief Justice of Nigeria. I’m glad common sense finally prevailed and this was eventually done before his acting period ceased. However, the increasingly out of touch Buhari administration has not done itself any favours. The dithering and intrigues surrounding the nomination of Justice Onnoghen is bad optics for an administration that came into power with less than 35% of votes from the South-south. What do I mean? I will explain.
In a country like Nigeria that is richly divided along ethnic and religious lines, the south before now was yet to produce a Chief Justice since 1987. All Chief Justices we have had since 1987 to date were all from the northern region of Nigeria. Since the return to democracy in 1999 we had two presidents from the South who never dithered nor delayed the appointment of a substantive CJN even if all the nominees they appointed where from a certain part of the country. The south did not query the rationale of having so many northerners following each other on the hierarchy of the Supreme Court neither did anyone even try to suggest that since the outgoing CJN is a northerner, the next must be a southerner. In my understanding, this didn’t happen because we could attest to the depth legal industry and brilliancy of the justices and many also felt that the long-standing tradition of the Supreme Court that the most senior judge take over as CJN should not be disrupted. During this period, we have had brilliant jurists as CJN from the north who continued to succeed themselves and they all have contributed immensely to the growth of our laws including Hon. Justice Maryam Alooma Mukhtar who made history as she became the first female Chief Justice of Nigeria.
This continued unabated until 2016 when Hon. Justice Mahmud Mohammed clocked the mandatory age of 70 years and the onus fell on President Buhari, from the northern region of the country, to appoint another CJN. This administration knew since their inauguration in 2015 that Justice Mohammed was going to retire midway into their administration and the president and his team were aware of the long-standing tradition of the Supreme Court albeit legally non-binding. As soon as Justice Mohammed left the bench, we began to hear so many reports of groups and ethnic chauvinists insisting that President Buhari should not appoint a southerner as next CJN. Rather, he should bypass him and appoint the next Justice who is a northerner as next CJN. Some of the groups even went beyond to suggest the President should appoint somebody outside the Supreme Court if Justice Onnoghen is the only option presented by the NJC. Truth be told, the President did not offer one word in support of the asinine suggestions but his inactions and dithering has fuelled same. He appointed Justice Onnoghen as Acting CJN in November and since then he has refused to forward his name to the Senate for screening and confirmation as substantive CJN. Neither the President nor his team gave an explanation as to the uncertainty, thus leaving the room for ethnic champions to attack the integrity of Justice Onnoghen and to suggest he should be bypassed. The President then left Nigeria for health reasons without doing his constitutional duty or explaining why he won’t be doing it.
The whole episode and how it played out shows this administration lacks tact and plans poorly. Just like they are doing in every segment of the economy, they knew it was coming but they failed to prepare and plan their next action. It was a bad testament of his administration considering the fact that this Govt has been accused of favouring people in certain part of the country to the detriment of other regions when it comes to appointment into Federal positions. By dragging this process to the tail end of Justice Onnoghen’s acting appointment, he has done little to assuage that notion. This administration has not done a good job in bridging the ethnic division in Nigeria. If the nomination and confirmation of Justice Onnoghen which ordinarily should be about merit and qualifications takes the ethnic route in public discourse, this administration with their kindergarten approach to issues of governance should take a large portion of the blame.
In end, he may have directed his vice president to forward the name of Hon. Justice Walter Onnoghen JSC to the Senate for confirmation as next CJN, but history will remember that it was his VP, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo SAN that signed the letter forwarding Onnoghen’s name to the Senate and not President Buhari as the constitution demands and that in itself is bad optics for his leadership.
Op–ed pieces and contributions are the opinions of the writers only and do not represent the opinions of Y!/YNaija
Abdulaziz is a lawyer and is based in Washington DC, USA. He tweets at @Backarray
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