Buhari and the CJN saga.

Two years ago, President Buhari declined to forward the name of Walter Onnonghen for confirmation as CJN due to a reportedly damning corruption dossier on the then acting CJN. But there was one problem, the fear that stopping Onnoghen will be interpreted as denying the South its legimate right to the CJN position after 29 straight years of northern CJNs.


Two days to the expiration of Onnoghen's tenure as acting CJN, Acting President Osinbajo forwarded his name to the Senate for confirmation while PMB was recuperating in faraway London. I applauded the move as one in Nigeria's best interest because failure to do that will leave two arms of government (executive and judiciary) run by acting heads, further adding to the political uncertainty.


I therefore find reports of the attempt by the CCB to try the CJN both puzzling and alarming. If the FG declined to move against Onnonghen two years ago for fear of its likely political controversy, how much so with just few weeks to all-important national elections?


Walter Onnonghen is going to attain the mandatory age (70 years) of retirement next year. Meaning, it is better for the FG to allow him sit out his tenure than go through a bruising national controversy that will leave the judiciary and the country even more fragmented. I honestly cannot make sense out of the reported move except if the FG was privy to information of graver national security concerns.


The question of who's going to succeed Onnonghen is even more relevant and I will understand if some people feel rightly aggrieved by the decision. We all remember the harrowing experience of Justice Salami at the hands of the Jonathan regime and Nigeria should not be made to go through a similar controversy again.


I'm not exenorating the CJN (he's still innocent until proven otherwise) or underestimating the level of corruption in the judiciary. In the past few years, I am privy to some priveleged information about the judiciary and it is near impossible to find any senior federal judicial official or senior lawyer with impeccable financial and professional record. In fact, President Buhari's inability to drain the judicial swamp early on is partly responsible for the failure of his anticorruption policy.


If the FG ends up moving against the CJN, it will be less about fighting corruption and more about politics, no matter the volume of evidence against the CJN. This is because President Buhari has failed to convince Nigerians (even his supporters) that the fight against corruption is fair and non-partisan. The FG that has failed to prosecute the corruption within its rank (Babachir, Maina, et al) cannot be trusted to prosecute an allegedly corrupt head of the Nigerian judiciary.




Charity; they say, begins at home.

Ahmed Musa Husaini