The President of the Nigeria Bar Association, NBA, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, have both taken a swipe at the Presidency, the All Progressives Congress, APC, and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over their recent attacks on the judiciary.
The CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, and the NBA President, Augustine Alegeh, SAN, on Wednesday, February 10, during the valedictory court session held in honour of a retiring Justice of the Apex Court, Muhammad Muntaka-Coomassie, in Abuja refuted claims of “corruption” and “bias” against the Judiciary.
Recently, judgments of the Supreme Court on the dispute over the 2015 governorship elections in States such as: Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Delta, and Ebonyi, have drawn criticism against the judiciary, with many labeling the apex court’s decisions as a product of corruption.
Following the decision of the Apex Court to uphold the election of the Rivers state Governor, Nyesom Wike, the APC candidate in the state, Dakuku Peterside, has alleged that the court’s decision was procured.
He maintained that the Apex Court’s judgment that affirmed the election of Wike, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was contrived to legalize electoral violence and rigging.
Recently, Buhari had taken a swipe at the integrity of the judiciary and its ability to dispense justice in cases of corruption, without compromise. Adding that the temple of justice was his major “headache.’’
The EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, was not left out, as he has also passed a damning verdict on members of the judiciary.
Magu made this allegation during a forum on Wednesday, February 10, as he accused prominent lawyers of frustrating the ongoing war against corruption in the country.
According to him, prominent members of the bar collect corruption-tainted briefs, and then aid and abet those who commit crimes by furnishing them with technical knowledge of how to escape the long arms of the law, as well as how to hide the loot they had stolen.
In reaction, Alegeh condemned what he termed “generalization and/or categorization” of the judiciary as corrupt and a stumbling block to Buhari’s war against corruption.
The NBA President also pledged the support of the bar to resist any attempt to intimidate or harass judicial officers. “The NBA condemns in its entirety the generalization and/or categorization of the judiciary as being corrupt and impediment to the zero corruption policy of the present administration,” he posited.
On his part, the Chief Justice of Nigeria described the unfavorable opinion expressed against the decisions of the judiciary as “misguided”.
Justice Mohammed said the backlash which the judiciary had received over its decisions failed to give consideration to law and rationale of the Nation’s system of government. “The Nigerian judiciary, though constantly striving to redress wrongs and tilt the balance in favour of that which is right, has recently had to face the backlash of misguided opinions fashioned without due consideration of the law and rationale for the system of government that we operate.
“The judiciary is duty bound to act in accordance with the dictates of the law as it stands and not as critics would like it to be.
“In this sense, naive idealism is but a pale limitation of legal certainty and it is in observing the career and jurisprudence of such eminent jurists as my lord, Honourable Justice Muntaka-Coomassie that we see this most clearly,” he stated Post-Nigeria
The CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, and the NBA President, Augustine Alegeh, SAN, on Wednesday, February 10, during the valedictory court session held in honour of a retiring Justice of the Apex Court, Muhammad Muntaka-Coomassie, in Abuja refuted claims of “corruption” and “bias” against the Judiciary.
Recently, judgments of the Supreme Court on the dispute over the 2015 governorship elections in States such as: Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Abia, Delta, and Ebonyi, have drawn criticism against the judiciary, with many labeling the apex court’s decisions as a product of corruption.
Following the decision of the Apex Court to uphold the election of the Rivers state Governor, Nyesom Wike, the APC candidate in the state, Dakuku Peterside, has alleged that the court’s decision was procured.
He maintained that the Apex Court’s judgment that affirmed the election of Wike, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, was contrived to legalize electoral violence and rigging.
Recently, Buhari had taken a swipe at the integrity of the judiciary and its ability to dispense justice in cases of corruption, without compromise. Adding that the temple of justice was his major “headache.’’
The EFCC Chairman, Ibrahim Magu, was not left out, as he has also passed a damning verdict on members of the judiciary.
Magu made this allegation during a forum on Wednesday, February 10, as he accused prominent lawyers of frustrating the ongoing war against corruption in the country.
According to him, prominent members of the bar collect corruption-tainted briefs, and then aid and abet those who commit crimes by furnishing them with technical knowledge of how to escape the long arms of the law, as well as how to hide the loot they had stolen.
In reaction, Alegeh condemned what he termed “generalization and/or categorization” of the judiciary as corrupt and a stumbling block to Buhari’s war against corruption.
The NBA President also pledged the support of the bar to resist any attempt to intimidate or harass judicial officers. “The NBA condemns in its entirety the generalization and/or categorization of the judiciary as being corrupt and impediment to the zero corruption policy of the present administration,” he posited.
On his part, the Chief Justice of Nigeria described the unfavorable opinion expressed against the decisions of the judiciary as “misguided”.
Justice Mohammed said the backlash which the judiciary had received over its decisions failed to give consideration to law and rationale of the Nation’s system of government. “The Nigerian judiciary, though constantly striving to redress wrongs and tilt the balance in favour of that which is right, has recently had to face the backlash of misguided opinions fashioned without due consideration of the law and rationale for the system of government that we operate.
“The judiciary is duty bound to act in accordance with the dictates of the law as it stands and not as critics would like it to be.
“In this sense, naive idealism is but a pale limitation of legal certainty and it is in observing the career and jurisprudence of such eminent jurists as my lord, Honourable Justice Muntaka-Coomassie that we see this most clearly,” he stated Post-Nigeria
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