With four months left to the retirement of the incumbent Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, tension seems to be enveloping the judiciary over allegations of plans to truncate the seniority rule in the appointment of his successor at the Supreme Court according to a report by Thisday newspapers.
With the current Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Mohammed due to retire on November 10, after attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70, a plot by the powers-that-be to truncate the age-long seniority rule in the judiciary is said to have been set in motion.
According to reports, some forces are plotting to alter the seniority rule that would probably see the second-in-command at the Supreme Court, Justice Walter Onnoghen, take over after Justice Mohammed retires from the bench on November 10. The forces trying to truncate the seniority rule at the apex court have argued that anybody appointed to be CJN must not necessarily be the most senior justice of the Supreme Court.
There are fears that if President Muhammadu Buhari bows to the pressures from some northern elite and their All Progressives Congress (APC) collaborators not to send Onnoghen’s name to the Senate for confirmation as CJN, the South will miss the golden opportunity to occupy the office. The last Southerner to be the CJN was Ayo Irikefe, who held the position between 1985 and 1987.
Justice Onnoghen was born on December 22, 1950 in Cross River State. He became a Justice of the Supreme Court in 2005 and if appointed, he will be the country’s CJN till 2020, when he would be 70 years old. The incumbent CJN hails from Taraba State while the next after Justice Onnoghen is Justice Tanko Mohammed from Bauchi State.
As CJN, the occupant of the office is also the Chairman of the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC) as well as the Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), the post power organ of the judiciary. Both commissions are involved in the process of promoting anybody to the position in the federal judiciary and that includes anybody, who has to become CJN.
Investigation revealed that if Justice Onnoghen is denied the position, the chances of having a southerner as CJN could be 15 to 20 years from now since most of the justices in the apex court would remain on the queue till they are 70.Read More
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