Former member of the Nigerian Constituent Assembly, Sola Akinyede, in this interview, discusses the rot in the judiciary. Akinyede calls for the National Judicial Council, NJC, to be reconstituted, saying the NJC is abusing its powers. Excerpts:

You are one of those who have been quite vocal about the absolute need for judicial reforms in Nigeria. Why?

As a young lawyer, I remember when I finished studying law in England and my father wanted me to do a PhD. I said no. I had done a master?s. I wanted to come back to Nigeria because I knew there were a lot of opportunities. He was a lawyer and I joined him in his practice. By the time my son graduated from the United Kingdom also in 2006, he came here. I had forced him to come to Nigeria for his National Youth Service Corps, NYSC.

He did. But when he got here, he said there was no way he could practice here. He is back in the UK. When I was a student in England, the first time I heard of Justice Udo Udoma, I knew about him because his son was a classmate in King?s College. But the first time I read his judgment was in a British university. His judgment was cited in the British textbooks. So that shows the extent of the international regard that Nigerian jurists had. Today, you cannot say that.

And I remember when Justice Dattijo Muhammad was making his valedictory statement, he alluded to that. The kind of decisions that the courts make, including the Supreme Court?s decision on Imo governorship election 2020, it is a decision that nobody can explain. And there are so many other decisions like that. Some of the decisions in respect of the primaries in 2023. Decisions like the Kano Emirate cases. A person who has been a lawyer for just two years knows that the Federal High Court has no jurisdiction in respect of chieftaincy matters.

But the case went on. The Chief Judge of the Federal High Court knows that. The judge to whom the case was assigned knows that. The senior advocate of Nigeria filing the case knows that, but the case went on. There is no serious country in the world where that happens. If you file a case meant for the family division in the UK in the chancellery, the judge in the family division will automatically transfer the case to the correct division.

But in Nigeria, the judiciary has allowed and enabled the elite to abuse the judicial process. A case that has nothing to do with Rivers State, where the events occurred in Lagos or Jos, will be filed in Port Harcourt. And then it will be filed in a court that has no jurisdiction at the Federal High Court. And that is a self-inflicted wound by the judiciary.

Those are the things that you see. Then the other issue is the case of senior justices, or senior judicial officers setting up their children in the judiciary. 30, 40 years ago, that didn?t happen. For the senior judicial officers putting in their children; if the justices were like them when they were practicing, they would not have become senior justices.

It is an abuse of the process. The reason this abuse is taking place is because of the structure of the two judicial bodies, the Federal Judicial Service Commission and also the National Judicial Council. Now, the Federal Judicial Service Commission is headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria. The duty or function of that body is to shortlist candidates for judicial positions and advise the NJC.

The NJC is also headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria. So you have a situation whereby the Chief Justice of Nigeria goes to the Federal Judicial Service Commission, and then he shortlists candidates for judicial positions, and then after he has shortlisted those candidates, he takes that list himself back to the NJC and decides who to appoint and present to the president.

That is what is happening. That is why senior judges are strutting with their children. In the FCT Federal High Court, eight out of 12 judges appointed were the children or relatives of senior judicial officers or ex-judicial officers. That is a statistical improbability.

One of the key reforms that you propose is one that seeks to substantially whittle down the powers of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, powers which you and many other lawyers and key players in the justice sector say are simply too enormous?

Absolutely. There are 23 members in the National Judicial Council. The Chief Justice of Nigeria appoints 19 out of 23 members. Out of those 23 members, 88 per cent, that is almost 90 per cent, are judicial or ex-judicial officers. So, when the Chief Justice of Nigeria has appointed about 88 per cent of the members, including the non-lawyers, and members of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, who will have the guts, when he brings the name of his son or his daughter, to challenge the CJN? That is why it is important that the NJC should be reconstituted.

Is that what the bill you proposed contained?

Yes. I left the Senate in 2011, so I no longer have the bill. I sent it in June. Although, when I was in the Senate, I had made some proposals in 2010, along those lines. I think nobody took them seriously. Obviously, things were not as bad as they were 14 years ago. I hope this time around, people will take these proposals seriously because the judiciary is in a state of decay.

But some would argue that it is the politicians, the people that you find in places like the National Assembly, who are responsible for the rot and not so much as the powers of the Chief Justice in particular?

It just shows us to the extent to which things have changed. During the time of the military, the judiciary resisted the military in spite of the fact that they had a barrel of a gun. Now, the judiciary has its hands and gloves with the politicians. I am sorry to say. It is a conspiracy of the judiciary, the high echelons of the judiciary, with the politicians. That is what is happening. And it is very, very sad. I sent it (the bill) to the Senate Committee on Constitutional Review.

They have been very busy on budget issues, so they haven?t had time for it. But I am following it up, and I hope that sooner or later, there will be a public hearing. I want to urge Nigerians to look at it because I believe that the son of a vulcanizer, the son of a labourer, a farmer, has a right to aspire to the highest judicial offices in Nigeria. It doesn?t have to be the son of a CJN. Nigerians are affected. They should get in touch with their senators and put pressure on them. Once the judiciary has decayed, as far as I am concerned, the country is finished.

Most Nigerians don?t have any faith in any institution in this country?

They should not give up. There will be changes and there could be changes. What needs to be done is for the leadership of the judiciary to attempt to give the people some confidence. I met the CJN about two, three years ago in the supermarket.

You mean the current CJN, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun?

Yes, I met her. She has a fantastic pedigree from Lagos when she was practising upright and all that. I told her, my lord, I pray you become the next CJN of Nigeria. A lot of Nigerians, including myself, were disappointed with the judiciary including the Supreme Court.

What was her response?

She is a judge, so she did not say anything. They are always very reticent. I am sure they are hearing all these things. As I said on Justice Dattijo Muhammad, Nigerians need to go and read his valedictory speech. He pointed out all the issues. He pointed out all the issues around the judiciary, including bribing judges.

If you have an appeal from the High Court, it takes about 17, 20 years for that appeal to be heard in the Supreme Court. About 17, 20 years. Why is that? As I said before, it is a self-inflicted wound, because of all these adjournments. Not just adjournments, but cases like the Kano Emirate case. The Kano Emirate case has taken 10 months for it to arrive at the Court of Appeal. It might still go to the Supreme Court. Maybe it will take another year.

All that is going to be a waste of time, because the Supreme Court is going to come to the conclusion that the Federal High Court has no jurisdiction. But a two-year-old lawyer knows that. Why is the leadership of the judiciary not disciplining judges for that behaviour? Why are senior advocates who file these cases not being disciplined or fined? If you file a case like that, the court should say you are fined 25 million. It is an abuse of the process. That is why you have a lot of delays. Just before he retired, Justice Ariwoola complained that they were overwhelmed with cases and I tweeted that it was self-inflicted.

In the rationale for the amendments that you propose, you allege that court officials and judges are often bribed by litigants to obtain favourable judgments. Can you cite examples?

If anybody is going to pay a bribe, he is not going to call the media. As a lawyer, I have friends who are senior advocates who have told me that this happens. And Justice Dattijo, in his valedictory speech, mentioned it. It is something that everybody knows that happens. And my question is this. If the justices of the Supreme Court know that it takes 17 to 20 years for cases at the High Court to arrive at their desk, and then the case that was filed last year arrives at their desk, shouldn?t they be suspicious? Because the justices can know from the suit number of the case and the summary of the case when the case started. Everyone knows that millions change hands under the table to obviate the case.

Do you think that the heads of the judiciary are unwilling or unable to confront this corruption, which is the reason that we continue to see bizarre judgments coming from them?

Absolutely. Lawyers are conservative. I think that there is some unwillingness, a lack of political will to address the issue. As I said, Justice Dattijo Mohamed, who was second in command to Justice Ariwoola, mentioned it. And we all know. You ask any lawyer, they will tell you.

You raised an interesting concept in your bill proposal, which you called fabricated immunity. Can you tell us about it?

There were a couple of judges who were accused of corruption, watertight cases. But the Court of Appeal brought out a technicality and said that you cannot prosecute a judge, a judicial officer, without the concurrence of the NJC. There is nothing like that in the Constitution. There are no precedents on it. There is no law. Global best practice is non-existent. in fact, in the UK and the US, conviction for an offense is usually a reason why you now start those disciplinary proceedings. So the justices, the appellate courts, unfortunately, have invented this technical immunity for themselves. That is one of the amendments I have made, that you don?t need the concurrence of the NJC.

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, the Independent Corrupt Practices Commission, ICPC, and the police should not need the concurrence of the NJC before justices and judges can be prosecuted. If not, we are going to set a bad precedent, because, if you want to prosecute a police officer, you will need the concurrence of the Police Service Commission. If you want to prosecute a civil servant, you will need the concurrence of the Federal Civil Service Commission. It is a very bad precedent. (Saturday Vanguard)

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