Nigeria\u2019s Chief Justice, Ibrahim Muhammad Tanko, on Monday, June 27, resigned from office. There are speculations he was pushed. Tanko controversially became Chief Justice of Nigeria on January 25, 2019 after his predecessor, \u00a0Justice Walter Onnoghen was removed by President Muhammadu Buhari by unconstitutional means. Justice Onnoghen was controversially charged before the Code of Conduct Tribunal over allegations of assets declaration violation and dismissed from his position by President Buhari. Onnoghen\u2019s dismissal was widely criticised by Nigerian human rights organisations and activists, as well as internationally. His dismissal created such wide uproar coming only a few months to the 2019 general elections and compelled diplomatic condemnation. In statements issued by the Ambassadors of the United States, United Kingdom, European Union in Nigeria, as well as activists, the diplomatic community worried that the removal of Onnoghen was targeted at Executive control of the Judiciary ahead of possible election dispute litigation expected to follow the general elections. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tanko\u2019s resignation came few days after 14 Justices of\nthe 21-member Supreme Court, Nigeria\u2019s apex court wrote to the National\nJudicial Council accusing Tanko of corruption and mismanagement of Supreme\nCourt resources. The Justices alleged among other things that despite an\nincrease to the Judiciary\u2019s budgetary allocation, their legitimate entitlements\nwere not being catered for, adding that there were issues with the provision of\ninternet services, increased electricity tariff and limited electricity supply,\nsupply of diesel, change of vehicles,\netc for the Justices. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tanko is no stranger to controversy. One of the\nimmediate controversies that attended him was soon after he assumed the office.\nIn an unprecedented decision, Nigeria\u2019s Supreme Court in a lead judgment\ndelivered by now retired Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, removed Emeka Ihedioha of\nthe Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Governor of Imo State from office under\nquestionable circumstances. The Supreme Court had proceeded to collate unverified\nresults of the Imo State governorship election by itself and announced a result\nthat replaced Ihedioha with the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in\nthe election, Hope Uzodinma, who came fourth in the election result announced\nby the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Analysts and political\nobservers of the current crisis in the South East point to this singular act of\nthe Supreme Court as being responsible for the high level insecurity that has\npermeated the entire South East. Apart from allegations of corruption levelled\nagainst the former Chief Justice, recent allegations have emerged that two of\nhis children who are reported to have huge influence over him, are now standing\nelections for the Senate and House of Representatives in Bauchi State under the\nbanner of the two main parties \u2013 the APC and the PDP. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nigeria\u2019s Judiciary watchers will certainly shed no\ntears over the resignation of Justice Tanko. There is growing worry that\nNigeria\u2019s judiciary faces a major problem of politicisation. Judges have been\naccused of issuing contradictory decisions on the same matter and disregarding\nprocess. To his credit, Tanko had issued Practice Directions recently that\nsought to streamline and restrain the ability of judges to assume jurisdiction\nover matters that fall outside of their powers. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Nigeria\u2019s Chief Justice, Ibrahim Muhammad Tanko, on Monday, June 27, resigned from office. There are speculations he was pushed. Tanko controversially became Chief Justice of Nigeria on January 25, 2019 after his predecessor, \u00a0Justice Walter Onnoghen was removed by President Muhammadu Buhari by unconstitutional means. Justice Onnoghen was controversially charged before the Code of Conduct […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2766,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2761","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2761"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2771,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2761\/revisions\/2771"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2766"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2761"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2761"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2761"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}