Impeachment and chief judges

The impeachment of the former governor of Adamawa State, MurtalaNyako, may become a lid to floodgate of impeachment  of state governors and perhaps the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria.At the beginning, it was all through the rumour mill that we heard that some state governors, including Adamawa, Nasarawa, Rivers and now […]

The impeachment of the former governor of Adamawa State, MurtalaNyako, may become a lid to floodgate of impeachment  of state governors and perhaps the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria.
At the beginning, it was all through the rumour mill that we heard that some state governors, including Adamawa, Nasarawa, Rivers and now Edo, Oyo and others yet to be named, would be impeached. The rumour of President Goodluck Jonathan’s impeachment also struck the airwaves and fizzled out, ostensibly with the manner the move was crushed before it was hatched. But now, it is no longer rumour, Nyako has been impeached while Governor Al-Makura of Nasarawa State went through impeachment process and survived.
Elections are the means by which democracy is practiced or is fired into action. In such exercise, legitimacy is conferred on some people to act as leaders or captain of their ship, sailing through the tide of time.
In contrast, impeachment or the removal of an official elected by the people is an exercise carried out with just a handful. It is either a mark of sunset to crisis or convocation to crisis. Though the banished Duke in Shakespeare’s ‘’As You Like It’’ opted to say that there is the good side in every bad situation, but impeachment in most cases amounts to sowing a whirlwind or dragon teeth that hatches into bad omen in the society. That informed why General Yakubu Gowon and AlhajiShehuShagari at the prompting of General Ibrahim Babangida moved in quickly to counsel former Speaker GhaliNa’Abba and former Senate President Anyim Pius Anyim not to pronounce impeachment of then President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, General OlusegunObasanjo, in 2002.
The concern of this writer is the fate of the judiciary in this comic dance of absurd in our nation’s democratic practice. Professor YemiAkinseye-George (SAN) had sounded a note of warning to judges in his book, ‘’Legal System, Corruption And Governance in Nigeria’’ saying General Babangida held the judiciary responsible for the annulment of the June 12, 1993 presidential election.
In his annulment proclamation, General Babangida held that ‘’the judiciary has been the bastion of the hopes and liberties of our citizens. Therefore, when it became clear that the courts became intimidated and subjected to the manipulation of the political process, resulting in contradictory decisions and orders by courts of co-ordinate jurisdiction, then the entire political system was in clear danger. Accordingly, it is in the supreme interest of law and order, political stability and peace that the presidential election be annulled.”
In the same vein, General SaniAbacha blamed the judiciary for sacking Chief Ernest Shonekan’s Interim National Government, following Justice DolapoAkinsanya of Lagos High Court’s judgement declaring it as illegal and an aberration.
The role of the Chief Justice of Nigeria and the Chief Judge of a state in the impeachment of a President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and a state governor, respectively, are well provided for in the 1999 Constitution (as amended). The constitution asked occupants of these positions to constitute panels to investigate allegations of ‘‘gross misconduct’’ properly levelled against the President or the state governor by the National Assembly or the state assembly as the case may be.
Section 188(5) of the 1999 Constitution as (amended) for instance vested the powers on the state chief judge to appoint a 7-man panel to investigate allegations of gross misconduct of the executive governor of a state. While carrying out this function, the chief judges are also to be guided by other sub-sections of section 188.
The mere failure by some chief judges of states in the past, especially since the advent of the current democratic dispensation in 1999 has left many chief judges of states and other judges to be untimely confined to judiciary graveyards.
The National Judicial Council (NJC)  which is charged by the same 1999 Constitution to appoint and discipline judges has always taken exception with utmost seriousness with any judge that side-stepped the provisions of the constitution which are crystal clear or unambiguous.
At an emergency meeting held at Abuja on 20th December, 2006, the National Judicial Council, acting on powers vested on it by paragraph 21(d) of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution suspended the chief judges of Anambra, Plateau and Ekiti states for the partisan roles played in the impeachment of their respective state governors.
“Those suspended were justices Chika Okoli (Anambra), Ya’uDakwang (Plateau), and both the Chief Judge of Ekiti State, Justice KayodeBamisile and the former acting chief judge of the state, Justice JideAladejana. The suspension took immediate effect. It was signed by the Executive Secretary of the council, Mr DanladiHalilu.
ChukaOkoli, former chief judge of Anambra State, will not forget in a hurry the powers of NJC. He was placed on suspension by the council for what it considered to be his inglorious act in the controversial impeachment of Peter Obi as governor of the state. Before Governor Virginia Etiaba effected the decision of the council to appoint an acting Chief Judge, Okoli even tried to give instructions to other judges as if NJC does not matter.
Justice KayodeBamisile, his Ekiti State counterpart, was also sanctioned for similar misconduct. The former chief judge allegedly compromised himself by appointing onto the investigation panel persons believed to be cronies of suspended Governor AyodeleFayose, to probe the alleged misconduct of the governor. But JideAladejana, who stepped into Bamisile’s shoes without due process, goes with his boss in line with the council’s recommendation. Lazarus Dakyen, the Chief Judge of Plateau State, also lost his job because of his reluctance to be guided by law in his participation in the processes leading to the removal of Governor Joshua Dariye.
Before them were OkechukwuOpene and D. A. Adeniji, who were indicted for taking bribe on the matter of the senatorial election in Anambra State. While Opene allegedly took N12 million, Adeniji was said to have collected N15 million. Though Akin Olujimi, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, and then federal Attorney-General, advised President OlusegunObasanjo against their dismissal, the President upheld the decision of the NJC. Olujimi based his advice on the procedure adopted by the council in determining the case.
They are not the only judicial officers who fell victim to the political crisis. In Anambra State,  StanleyNnaji, then a judge of Enugu State High Court, was suspended in March 2004 for wrongly assuming jurisdiction on a matter outside his state. The judge had ordered TafaBalogun, then inspector-general of police, to remove Chris Ngige, who was then the governor of Anambra State. NnorukaUdechukwu, the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, petitioned the NJC, complaining that the ruling was in bad faith and against the code of conduct of judicial officers.
Nnaji was probably encouraged by the reluctance of the federal government to implement a similar decision of the council on Wilson Egbo-Egbo, another high court judge, for granting an injunction directing Ngige to stop parading himself as the governor. But shortly after Nnaji committed his own misconduct, Obasanjo approved Egbo-Egbo’s retirement. The latter was one of the nine judges so far retired for endorsing unnecessary ex-parte applications. They are not the only casualties of political cases. Five others were implicated in the 2003 Election Petition Tribunal in AkwaIbom State. They adjudicated on the petition against the re-election of Governor Victor Attah by ImeUmanah, candidate of the defunct All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, at the election. By the time the NJC concluded its job, Matilda Adamu, a judge of the High Court of Plateau State, Christopher P.N. Senlong of the Federal High Court, Lagos, and James Isede, a Chief Magistrate in the Edo State judiciary, had earned themselves dismissal from the judiciary. D. T. Ahura of the High Court of Plateau State and A. M. Elelegwu of the Customary Court of Appeal, Delta State, were recommended for suspension. The federal government, after approving the verdict of the council on the higher officers in February 2004, sent their case files to the Independent Corrupt Practices and other Related Offences Commission, ICPC, for trial.

Ahuraka writes from Abuja