Dahiru Musdapher:My Life as a Lawyer and Judge

Justice Dahiru Musdapher is retiring today as Chief Justice of Nigeria after a brief stint as a private lawyer, two years as a state Attorney General followed by a long stint as a High Court judge, state Chief Judge, Appeal Court judge, Supreme Court judge and Chief Justice. Earlier this week, he sat down to […]

Justice Dahiru Musdapher is retiring today as Chief Justice of Nigeria after a brief stint as a private lawyer, two years as a state Attorney General followed by a long stint as a High Court judge, state Chief Judge, Appeal Court judge, Supreme Court judge and Chief Justice. Earlier this week, he sat down to speak on his life and times.

 

Weekly Trust: We hear that the way you started your primary schooling was surreptitious and you were sitting under a tree branch?

Justice Dahiru Musdapher: You remember Mohamed Ibrahim, the former director general of both NTA and FRCN? He was then a senior pupil in the village elementary school in Babura town. There were even no trees there; it was on the edge of the desert. Whenever my senior brothers and sisters were going to the school, I had nowhere else to go and play, so I followed them to the school. I would stand by the window, looking inside. This was in the early 1950s. I was very intelligent in those days, and many a times a question would be asked in the class that none of the pupils in the class could answer. Mohamed Ibrahim, who is now the district head of Kanya Babba close to Babura, he came to school in our village in those days. He was teaching the class how to read and he saw me at the gate. He asked a question about what was read the previous week and nobody could answer the question, so I answered it. He then dragged me inside the classroom and I sat down. That was the beginning of my primary education. Long before that time, my father was the first teacher in the school.

Your parents didn’t stop you?

No. Neither my father nor the headmaster stopped me. And as God will have it, I spent only two years there instead of the normal four years before I went to Birnin Kudu Middle School in January 1954.

You were a genius in those days!

I was, but not anymore! I am getting too old now and I don’t understand things anymore [laughter].

You were only 33 when you became the Chief Judge of Kano State in 1979. How did it happen?

Yes. What happened was this. In 1976, of all the students who enjoyed a scholarship from the Northern Nigerian Government to study law, I was one of the first to engage in private legal practice. I didn’t work for the government. You know why? When we were in school in England, the allowance for those of us who were not married was 57 pounds. And when you came to work as a senior civil servant, the salary was 60 pounds per month, and you had to pay taxes, pay for housing, pay for the car. I felt that was not good enough.

When I was at the Law School, I met the first Northerner who was practising law in my hometown of Kano, the late Alhaji Kaloma Ali. He immediately took a liking of me and I joined his law firm. Another colleague of ours, Ambassador Yunusa Paiko who lives in Minna now, we practiced together in Kano.

In 1976, Justice Umaru Abdullahi, the former President of the Court of Appeal, who was a classmate of mine in England and at the Law School, was the Attorney General of Kaduna State. They were going to appoint a High Court judge in Kaduna, and the Military Governor said “Umaru, you cannot be appointed a judge until you bring somebody to replace you [as Attorney General].” I was enjoying my private practice in Kano, going all over the Northern states. They brought all my friends to put pressure on me. I went to Kaduna, I thought I was just seeing the governor, but I was forced almost to take the oath as a member of the Executive Council of Kaduna State, not even of my state!

I was there for two years, and in January 1979 I was made a Judge of the Kano State High Court. In those days you didn’t even apply to become a judge, unlike what is obtaining now. I didn’t even know about it. In those days people did not ask to be appointed judges. In 1976, I was in General Murtala Mohamed’s house at 2nd Avenue Ikoyi, where he was staying. At that time, government was thinking of creating a Court of Appeal and an Upper Shari’a Court of Appeal, and there was a problem of appointing what was called a Grand Mufti of Nigeria. Malams who should have known better were coming and lobbying to be so appointed. Somebody brought to Murtala nine volumes of the hadith of Prophet Muhammed [SAW] translated into English. General Murtala and I were reading it at random, when Murtala suddenly saw a place where one of the Prophet’s disciples asked to be made a judge, and the Prophet said the mere fact that you asked to be made a judge, you have disqualified yourself. Murtala just put the book down and said “This Upper Shari’a Court of Appeal, we are not even going to do it because all these people we are going to appoint don’t even know this simple saying of the Holy Prophet or even about Islamic law, so we will leave it for the politicians to create the court.” Anyway, I was appointed a Judge of the Kano State High Court in January 1979.

What stirred your interest to study law in the first place?

Honestly I don’t know. I was interested in reading that time and I could finish one of these Penguin books in three hours, at that time! It happened that a classmate of mine got nominated to do the Legal Course in Zaria. At that time, you did that course for 9 months and then went to England to complete the study. I was working as a Temporary Ungraded Clerk in the Northern Region Ministry of Finance in Kaduna. One day he came to me and said “look Dahiru, I completed this form and I went for an interview and I have been selected. Try your luck.” That was R.D. Mohamed, who retired two years ago as Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal Abuja Division. He was my classmate in secondary school. And I did, I just filled the form. I have always been lucky in my life to meet the right people. It was not that I wanted to read law; I didn’t even know about that course!

General Sani Abacha was also your classmate?

Yes, he was. His father came from Maiduguri to live in Kano. He was a businessman, and I think he married a Fulani woman.

You resisted becoming Attorney General of Kaduna State.

Actually many friends came to Kano to carry me to Kaduna. Abacha was one of them; Babangida too was one of them. They were Colonels in those days. And Shehu Yar’adua too. We met in England when he was at Sandhurst. They all said I had to come and assist, that was the reason.

You were a Judge of Kano High Court for only one year before you became the Chief Judge and you overtook some of your seniors?

Oh yes. To God Almighty who made me, I didn’t lobby for it. What happened was this. There was a judge, Justice Abubakar Bashir Wali who was in the Appeal Court and he wanted to come back and be the Chief Judge of Kano State. Who am I to seek that post? My father was not a judge but his father was the Chief Alkali of Kano in the olden days. I flew to Lagos on my own and went to see Justice Mamman Nasir, then President of the Court of Appeal and asked him to allow Justice Wali to come and be Chief Judge of Kano State.

Justice Mamman Nasir came to Kano. He saw the then Governor-elect Abubakar Rimi and his deputy, Bibi Faruk. What transpired, I really don’t know. I know there was an old problem between the father of Justice Wali and the father of PRP’s leader Malam Aminu Kano over the appointment of a Chief Alkali of Kano. I think Justice Wali’s father was a nephew of Malam Aminu Kano’s father, and the powers that be in those days chose Justice Wali’s father as the Wali of Kano, the senior judge. I don’t know; either Malam Aminu Kano did not want to bring his nephew as the Chief Judge so as not be accused of nepotism, or maybe he felt bad that his father was superseded by Justice Wali’s father. To God who made me, I don’t know, but this was how I understood it.

There were two senior judges who were indigenes. One was Aloma Mukhtar who was my senior by a year. This thing has happened to me too. The former Chief Justice of Nigeria Aloysius Katsina-Alu was my classmate. When I was the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal in Jos, he served under me. These things do happen. It was not my own making. I didn’t ask to be appointed, but perhaps because they knew me. Abubakar Rimi the governor was my junior at the Middle School in Birnin Kudu. I have been lucky in life; I just know so many people! This is the truth of the matter [Laughter].

You paid dearly for that later?

No, no. I would have been in the Supreme Court before them. I suffered; I spent 17 years in the Court of Appeal before I came to Supreme Court. It was because when Sani Abacha was there, for one reason or the other he wanted to establish a Constitutional Court. I was then the Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal in Lagos, the biggest branch of the Appeal Court. I was nominated [to head the constitutional court], and I prayed that the thing will not succeed. I thought we had too many courts and we did not need a constitutional court, at that time. Consequently, five or six of my juniors were elevated to the Supreme Court while the issue of my being president of the constitutional court was still going on. I was able to convince Justice Uwais who was the chief justice and Abdullahi Ibrahim who was the Attorney General that there was no need for that court and they were able to convince the powers that be. But by then my juniors were at the Supreme Court [laughter].

You have been pursuing reforms in the judiciary in the past year. Where do matters stand now?

There are a lot of problems. Where we could deal with things administratively, we did. In the past 11 months, Supreme Court did two years’ work by giving so many considered judgments due to the administrative actions we took. Other reforms cannot be made without amendment to the statutes and the constitution. I even asked the legislature to do certain amendments to enable the courts to work well. It is only in Nigeria that every matter can go up to Supreme Court, so we took some administrative action.

Why then were governorship election cases made to reach the Supreme Court?

We didn’t ask for it. It was the legislature that did it. Our work is to apply the law as it is.

The constitutional amendments that required the courts to dispose of election cases expeditiously, how difficult has it been?

You see, people are not happy with the time factor. It has caused a lot of problem, despite the front loading, etc. Sometimes a petitioner would want to call 80 witnesses. How can you accommodate that?  I am sorry to mention, like the case of Anambra State where they had 200 election petitions. There are serious problems! Up till yesterday, somebody was asking us to reconsider a ruling we delivered! The ones in Rivers and Delta States, they are always bringing motions for us to reconsider! Under certain circumstances, the Supreme Court can reconsider a ruling, but…Because the stakes in our elections are very high; people will not just leave it like in other places. Unless we reduce [laughter] the benefits from political office, things will not change in this country.

From your long experience at all levels of the judiciary, how pervasive is the problem of corruption?

Let me tell you another story. The main reason for establishing EFCC and ICPC was that you could spend 10 years without any case of corruption being successfully prosecuted in court. There are bad eggs all over, because corruption has pervaded all sectors of this country. For example, even in v the appointment of judges. That is why I recommend that we change the system. For the Chief Justice or any other judge’s appointment, we should advertise and call for interviews and pick the best people. What happens now? Lobbying! When you have a vacancy of three or ten judges, you find up to 700 applicants for it…At a conference held by DIABA, that is the ECOWAS commission dealing with money laundering, corruption etc a suggestion was even made to try to set up judges because that is the only way you can catch a man red handed, since the giver and the receiver will want to do it secretly. That is also why we want to do e-litigation, to do away with the number of papers that come before us. If you see the record that a judge has to read, sometimes it is as high as this wall, and you must read, understand and digest it and decide the issue. We have started doing e-litigation as part of the efforts we are making.

If the judiciary were placed on the first line charge will that help?

No. The procedure now is that all judges, High Court, Shari’a Court of Appeal and Customary Court judges are paid by the Federal Government through the NJC. That’s how their salaries are paid, but states sometimes pay the running costs, vehicles, houses etc. And we pay the salaries on time. Nigerian judges are also the best paid in West Africa. If a man wants to be corrupt, no matter how much money you give him…Then there are the circumstances in the country, especially election. Most of the corruption in the judiciary comes during electoral matters. Maybe it is better to have a constitutional court that will take the matter of election cases off the back of the courts.

How you now changed your opinion about constitutional court?

Yes, due to what is going on! [Laughter].

Could we rely on retired judges to handle election cases?

Anything that will take it off the courts and allow them to face their normal duties will be better. In Anambra State alone there were 200 election petitions! What are you going to do?

Sir, how did it affect you personally when the three biggest judges in the country, Chief Justice Katsina-Alu, yourself as the second judge on the Supreme Court and the President of the Appeal Court Isa Ayo Salami had to appear before the NJC, swear to an oath and give accounts which were conflicting? Personally, how did you take it?

I felt very very bad. Number one the three of us are all classmates. I was in the Court of Appeal’s Benin Division when Ayo Salami was appointed a judge of the Court of Appeal and we were there together for about two and a half years. We are very close family friends. When the issue arose, I was not number two, I was number three. Justice Niki Tobi was number two. I was not a member of the NJC. I just happened to be in the office of the Chief Justice one time when Justice Ayo Salami came over the Sokoto election petition issue. What I was told at that time was that the judgment had leaked. As usual I won’t keep quiet so I said if the judgment has leaked, then go and have another panel with credibility to look into it. Quite honestly I left them at that stage.

What happened was this. Eventually, in his own affidavit, Justice Ayo Salami mentioned that I was there when Katsina-Alu asked him to enter judgment in favour of one of the parties. At the same time, Justice Katsina-Alu also said I was his number two man at that time… he said one other thing at that time. In my evidence, I spoke the truth as I know it. It might be possible I wasn’t around when they had their meeting and discussed whatever it was they discussed. I did say that I wasn’t there when Katsina-Alu asked Isa Ayo Salami to ask his judges to…How can you even do that kind of thing anyway? What guts have we got to ask a judge, at the level that we are in, to enter judgment [laughter]? Both of them, I talked to them individually, and I abused them for what they even did. I did! I was not happy at all. They were both classmates of mine and they both worked under me at one time or the other.

Do you regret that the matter got out of hand?

Oh, I do! Very much! I regret it, very much! There was no reason for it at all.

Between NJC and the Presidency, who doesn’t want Salami recalled?

I really can’t answer that question. The NJC even decided that Salami should be…What happened was I was not really around. It happened I think in August last year. I was not the CJN then. We were on vacation and I was in Saudi Arabia when the NJC met and recommended to the President to suspend Justice Ayo Salami. I was not there! I wasn’t there at all! You know sometimes when these things happen, I was not there, I cannot explain.

Actually what happened at the beginning was that I was the number two to Katsina-Alu, when I got the petitions that Katsina-Alu was accused of dabbling into the Sokoto affair and Justice Salami was accused of dabbling into the Ekiti and Osun matter. So I wrote them letters as number two man, like we do to all judges, that this petition has been made against you, could you answer these questions? These are the petitions, what is your reaction? The matter then went to NJC and in its own wisdom it decided to set up a committee to look into it. I didn’t want to take part in it because I was called to give evidence. I didn’t say I wanted to give evidence, but I was told to come and give evidence because both of them mentioned me in their affidavits, so I went and told them exactly what I knew.

Justice Umaru Abdullahi committee did not find anyone of the liable. NJC decide there was no recommendation made by Umaru Abdullahi’s committee and they wanted another body to make recommendations. I was sitting there but because I gave evidence, I didn’t want to say anything on the issue. So a committee was set up, and the matter came up when I was away on my holidays, and NJC took a decision. Justice Salami was not charged with anything concerning the Sokoto matter, he wasn’t accused of doing anything in consideration of that. But what has happened in my own opinion, I may be wrong, was that he was not charged with the Sokoto matter, it was the Sokoto matter that caused his suspension. This is why the NJC eventually said “recall him.” NJC had already written a letter to the President asking that Justice Ayo Salami be compulsorily retired.

Please help Nigerians to understand this. If the President of the Court of Appeal is offered a movement to the Supreme Court, is that a promotion or a demotion?

[Laughter]. When Court of Appeal was established in 1976, Chief Judges of states were equated to a Justice of the Court of Appeal. I think it was only three of us Chief Judges of states who agreed to go to Court of Appeal. In my own case I was Chief Judge of Kano State for 5 years, there was nothing exciting again so I came to the Court of Appeal. The President of the Court of Appeal is the same status and salary with a Justice of the Supreme Court. However, the rulings made by the President of the Court of Appeal are subject to appeal to the Supreme Court. That’s the only thing, but a person can choose not to go.

We have now had 5 Chief Justices retiring since 2006. The turnover is so high. Is it not time to re-examine the system of selecting CJNs strictly by seniority?

Of course it is time to change it. I said so. In fact our proposed constitutional amendment states that once you have been called to the bar for 15 years, you are eligible to be a Supreme Court judge or even Chief Justice. That is it. Ours is just a convention but it doesn’t help us. Others have changed all over the world, even in Britain. They select the head of their Supreme Court by advertisement and interviews. Will I say that because I had only 11 months left I will not do it when one of my bosses did only six months? [Laughter].

So what will you be doing in retirement?

I am going to sit down on my mat and seek God’s pardon for all the sins I committed [laughter].