Danladi Umar And Retributive Justice
“Umar’s removal is long overdue. But what I find rather surprising is that his defenders are citing the crisis orchestrated by the removal of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen to canvass for due process on the matter”.
BY OLUSEGUN ADENIYI
The rule of law is underwritten by fundamental assumptions. One, that the law is fair to all and that citizens can approach the court expecting to obtain justice irrespective of their station in life. Two, that judges who interpret the law and dispense justice will be above reproach and remain impartial. Three, that an independent, orderly judiciary will be self-regulating. Unfortunately, recent developments in Nigeria only point to a betrayal of nearly all these foregoing assumptions.
Last week, the Senate passed a resolution asking President Bola Tinubu to sack Danladi Umar as chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) over sundry allegations of corruption and misconduct. But the provisions of Section 157 (1) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) on which the resolution was anchored do not support what the Senate did. There is a difference between the Code of Conduct Bureau (CCB) and the CCT and you expect Senators to know that. It would take the votes of two thirds of members of both chambers (Senate and the House of Representatives) for the president to remove the CCT chairman. Apparently mindful of this lacuna, the House on Tuesday invoked the proper law, Section 17 (3), Part 1, Fifth Schedule of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) to complete the process with their concurrence that Umar be removed.
The second issue is the presidential action that preceded the two resolutions. On 13th July this year, then presidential spokesman, Ajuri Ngelale, announced “the appointment of Dr. Mainasara Umar Kogo as the Chairman of the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT),” as directed by the president. “Kogo is a seasoned lawyer and analyst in the fields of law, security, economy, politics, and international diplomacy,” Ngelale further said. I assumed at the time that Umar’s tenure had lapsed, or he had quietly resigned. Evidently, that is not the case. With both Umar and Kogo claiming to be CCT chairman, the National Assembly has merely covered up for a presidential lapse of judgement on the matter.
The third and perhaps most substantive issue relates to the charges against Umar. First sworn-in as acting CCT chairman in 2007 at age 36 despite his thin résumé, Umar became the substantive chairman in 2011. And in the past 13 years, there have been several allegations of impropriety against him. In January 2018, for instance, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) accused Umar of demanding and receiving bribes from one Rasheed Owolabi Taiwo, a defendant standing trial before the CCT for “favours to be afterwards shown” to him. Besides, Umar also has a notorious reputation in Abuja.
Asked to repark his vehicle that was obstructing other customers at Banex Plaza on 8th April 2021, Umar (who drove himself that day and would later make a big deal of it in a reckless statement) adopted the usual Nigerian Big Man disposition of ‘Do you know who I am?’ by assaulting a security man. When the video went viral, he claimed to be the victim of assault by ‘Biafran boys’, thus profiling shop owners at the commercial complex. In calling for a full investigation into the incident at the time, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) expressed its displeasure at the “display of naked power by a public officer especially one who, by virtue of his high office, is expected to exhibit a high standard of conduct.”
Given the foregoing, Umar’s removal is long overdue. But what I find rather surprising is that his defenders are citing the crisis orchestrated by the removal of a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen to canvass for due process on the matter. This same Umar was a willing tool in the hands of President Muhammadu Buhari and his Attorney General and Justice Minister, Abubakar Malami, SAN, for that judicial act of infamy. Now that his misdeeds have caught up with him, Umar is seeking equity with unclean hands.
However, the bigger lesson in this saga is for the judiciary. In my presentation at the 2024/2025 Legal Year ceremony of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria (NICN) in Abuja on 9th October, I made a general point about justice administration in Nigeria with a clear distinction between ‘rule of law’ and ‘rule of judges’. The latter, as I said, is a situation in which a judge places himself/herself above the law. “Regrettably, the loud and overpowering noise of the latter is becoming definitive of Nigeria’s judiciary in the perception of most people,” I concluded. “Nothing gives better expression to that than the statement, ‘Go to Court’ by conscious wrong-doers, often followed by ‘Go on appeal’ by their hand-in-glove judges.”
In his highly entertaining book, ‘Judges’ which I once referenced on this page, Lord David Philip Pannick used the lesson of history in both the United Kingdom and United States to highlight what could happen when the people lose faith in the judicial process. “Some judges have received more than their just deserts for injudicious behaviour. In the 13th century, Andrew Horn alleged that in one year, King Alfred caused 44 judges to be hanged as homicides for their false judgments. In 1381, a mob pursued the Lord Chancellor, Simon de Sudbury, and cut off his hand. One year later, Lord Chief Justice Cavendish was killed after being apprehended by a mob and subjected to a mock trial in which he was sentenced to death,” Pannick, a member of the House of Lords and the Blackstone Chambers, wrote. “In 1688, the infamous judge Jeffreys, by then the Lord Chancellor, went into hiding when James II fled the country. Jeffreys was captured in Wapping when he was recognized in a tavern by a man who had been a dissatisfied litigant in his court. (The man had won his case, but Jeffreys had been rude to him and kept him waiting). Jeffreys was put in the Tower of London, where he died in 1689.”
We are living in an age when the past bears an uncanny resemblance to the present. It is therefore important for the National Judicial Council (NJC) to begin dealing with deviant behaviours among its members. Authorities in the judicial sector must not allow a situation in which the people would openly turn against our men and women on the bench. This requires an urgent need for internal cleansing. May the day never come in Nigeria when an enraged public would begin to disrobe otherwise eminent judges in the marketplace!
