ONNOGHEN'S INFAMOUS LEGACY, OUR YOUNG WIGS AND THE LAW

ONNOGHEN'S INFAMOUS LEGACY, OUR YOUNG WIGS AND THE LAW

                        By 
     BASHIR MAIDUGU

"Be ye ever so high, the law is above thee”...Thomas Fuller (1608 to 1661)

The recent conviction of former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Walter Nkanu Onnoghen by the Code of Conduct Tribunal is bold, historic and exemplary. As the head of the apex court coupled with his decades of service on the bench, it can be asserted that this Judge must have caused massive damage to our legal and judicial system, the extent of which no one really knows.

As disclosed from the proceedings, his record of service and the drama upon his suspension, Jurists like Walter Onnoghen do not care about our judiciary, the legal system, the law and how his own infamous conduct  may have impact on all of us and Nigeria. 

For his kind, the Judicial Bench is merely a means to an end - their personal,  egoistic ends! For his type, justice is not blind. He wouldn't care less of selling judgments to the highest bidders or for their preferred interests. They would lord over mere mortals and dish out judgements not necessarily founded on law perhaps whenever there's a sufficient vested interests to serve or to where their self-interests may lie, and they have that pompous feeling of invincibility to do and undo as they pleased. Such Judges believe they cannot be touched, given the complex processes and complexities surrounding their statuses. And unfortunately because they know the law and the inherent technicalities, and they can meander within same, they always use it to their advantage, often with impunity. In truth, they've so manipulated the system that today they seem to have almost allotted to themselves an "immunity" where none really exists within our statutes. 

His conviction epitomises how all along a nation helplessly watched as the head of the judicial arm of our national government, armed with the knowledge of the law and vantage position as a serving law officer with enormous resources and strategically placed, exploited our laws and it's technicalities to cover up massive fraud and thereby bastardizing the concept of good governance and possibly derail our democracy through judicial terrorism. 

In this country, as recent events in Zamfara, Rivers and Kano have shown, the issue of some judges issuing out dodgy and controversial court injunctions, orders including certiorari and mandamuses emanating from ex perte proceedings as if in competition.....all probably instigated by politicians with different vested interests must be addressed through the combined efforts of the Bar and the Bench just to save the image of the legal profession and to dispense justice in whole and not in part and to prevent pushing the hallowed institutions and the nation, into a dangerous slide to perdition. 

For those of us who are lawyers in training and striving very hard to live within our means, it would have been truly a great national disservice for the head of Nigeria's Apex Court to be cunningly protected by his colleagues from the same law he knew and knowingly desecrated. His offence is almost a strict liability offence as evidenced by his written and oral admissions and the stupendous undeclared sums discovered in his bank accounts in foreign currencies vis a vis the position of our law on assets declaration. 

I further opine that without a doubt, since resignation isn't in our culture, the judiciary, nay the Nigerian State, must be saved from the embarrassment of judicial officers in Onnoghen clothings. 
Imperatively, one may rationally ask:- 

1.) How many lives or careers of personalities have jurists such as Walter Onnoghen ruined through influenced judgments in their long career as judges? 

2.)What are the extent of collateral damages such judgments has wrecked on our democracy and society ?

3.)To what extent has it impacted on the teaching and learning of law as we know it in the Universities and the Law school and the legal profession? 

4.) Will our law reform commission take up those controversial Onnoghen judgments and other similar case laws and recommend their review to the appropriate authorities? 

All Nigerians arguing this issue ostensibly for the cause of our democracy and nation must ask and answer these questions! 
God Bless Nigeria!

Bashir Maidugu
Abuja, Nigeria