Nepotism Has Killed, Buried Nigerian Judiciary – HURIWA Alleges

Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on Tuesday, February 13, 2024, declared that at no time in the history of the Nigerian judiciary, did it witness the scandalously and so shamelessly nepotism presently at play in appointing lawyers to become members of the bench as judges.

HURIWA also said that the situation was same in the distribution of the title of Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), which has become a family affair in the country.

It noted that in the last few years, senior members of the Nigerian Bar who are Senior Advocates of Nigeria, whose spouses and biological children are lawyers, have been in a mad rush to enlist their wives and children as SAN, stressing that the development was disgraceful and totally unacceptable.

HURIWA argued that like the global best practices dictate, only merits and competencies should be the only qualifying requirements for those who should be elevated to the position of judges and those to wear the prestigious titles of Senior Advocates of Nigeria.

These were contained in a statement by the National Coordinator of HURIWA, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, who stressed that the danger in allowing the decline in observance of merits and competencies as yardstick for such appointments to continue, is that the quality of justice delivery which would be seriously impeded since those not qualified are aided to occupy the front seats in the courts of the Federation.

HURIWA particularly decried the reported appointments of the daughter of the Chief Judge of Abuja and the son of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), as judges of the FCT High Court and the Federal High Court respectively.

The Rights group said it was shocked that those who are the supposed to be custodians of the temple of justice have decided to embrace nepotism as their only yardstick for elevating their children to the offices of judges noting that such a development offends the law of natural justice and a violation of their oaths of office.

It also noted that with the appointments of their biological children, the CJN and the Chief Judge of the FCT have allowed conflicts of interests to mar their sense of judgment and blinded their capacity to discharge their primary obligation to their callings as leaders in the justice sector.

Quoting a media publication, the Rights group alleged that the Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory High Court Husseini Baba-Yusuf is on the brink of seating his daughter as one of the newest judges in the system, as Peoples Gazette found out, meshing contentiously with Chief Justice Kayode Ariwoola and other members of the legal elite who have turned the judiciary into premium job racket for family members.