The National Judicial Council will on Tuesday hold an emergency session, Punch reports.
It was learnt that the NJC originally scheduled the meeting solely to consider the candidate most suitable for appointment as the next Chief Justice of Nigeria from the list forwarded to it by the Federal Judicial Service Commission last week.
But following the raids on the houses of some judicial officers by the men of the Department of State Services over the weekend, it was learnt that the outgoing CJN and the Chairman of both the NJC and FJSC, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, directed that the issue be included on the agenda of the scheduled emergency meeting.
The DSS, at the end of the operations, which lasted at least 12 hours between Friday night and Saturday morning, arrested Justices Sylvester Ngwuta and John Okoro, both of the Supreme Court, as well as Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court in Abuja.
The security operatives also searched the house of another judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, but he was not arrested.
A senior officer of the security agency, Mr. Abdullahi Garba, who spoke with journalists in Abuja after the operations on Saturday, said that a large amount including foreign/local currencies had been recovered from three of the judges. He gave the breakdown of these to include: N93,558,000.00, $530,087, £25,970, and €5,680 (a total of over N270m).
In Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital, the raid started in the early hours of Saturday when scores of DSS agents besieged the house of a Federal High Court judge at No. 35, Forces Avenue.
The CJN was said to have been embarrassed by the developments, and immediately put a call through to Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami.
A source told our correspondent on Sunday that, “The CJN decided that the NJC would take a position on the issue at the emergency meeting of the NJC already scheduled to hold on Tuesday for the consideration of the next CJN.”
The Federal Judicial Service Council met last Wednesday and concluded its part of the ongoing process of appointing a successor to the outgoing CJN.
At the end of its meeting presided over by its chairman, who is the incumbent CJN, the commission nominated the next three most senior Justices of the Supreme Court to the National Judicial Council.
Credible judiciary sources say Justice Walter Onnoghen, who is the most favoured by the tradition of succession arrangement in the judiciary – being the current second in rank to the CJN – topped the FJSC’s list of nominees.
Justice Onnoghen was born in 1950 at Okurike in Biase Local Government Area of Cross River State, and was appointed to the Supreme Court bench in 2005.
The next on the list was Justice Tanko Muhammad who was born on December 31, 1953 at Doguwa-Giade, Giade Local Government Area of Bauchi State.
Justice Muhammad was appointed to the apex court bench on January 7, 2007.
The third on the list was Justice Suleiman Galadima, who was born on October in 1946 in Nasarawa State.
Justice Galadima was appointed to the Supreme Court bench in 2010.
Justice Mohammed, who was born on November 10, 1946, will leave office on November 10, 2016, when he will attain the mandatory 70 years retirement age.
Meanwhile, Thisday reports that apart from those being detained and interrogated, another eight judges, including two justices of the Supreme Court, are also being investigated for mind-boggling corruption cases. “A total of 15 judges are being investigated by the Department of State Services and other security agencies. Seven of them are currently being interrogated at the DSS headquarters in Abuja and may be charged to court as from Monday,’’ the newspaper quoted a source as saying, adding: “While another eight including one or two from the Supreme Court are still being investigated and more of the judges will be arrested in the next few days or weeks.’’
__________
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2015 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
