COVER STORY

Appeal, w hich states inter alia.

Following m y appointm ent as the
President o f the Court o f App eal, I
found am ong the election petition
appeals, the Sokoto State gubernatorial
election petition appeal.
I set up panels o f the A ppeal Court to
dispose o f the pending petitions,
including that o f Sokoto.
I was how ever shocked, when
subsequent to the setting up o f the
panel on the Sokoto gubernatorial
election petition appeal, and after all
parties had filed and exchanged briefs,
adopted som e and judgem ent reserved,
the 1st defendant (C hief Justice o f
N igeria, Justice Aloysius Katsina- Alu)
sum m oned m e b y telephone to his
office in Abuja.
The 1st defendant (CJN) asked m e to
disband the pane. I had set up for the
appeal on the excuse that if the panel

allowed the appeal and rem oved the

sitting governor, the ripple effect would
lead to a rem oval o f our highly revered
Sultan o f Sokoto he deposed.
He added, The 1st defendant could not
convince m e on the logic predicating
his reasoning m ore especially as the
Sultan was not a party to the election
petition and as there is no nexus
betw een any of the parties and the
Sultan, so I told him I w ould not
disband the panel.
The ist defendant (CJN) then said in
the alternative, that I should direct the
panel o f justices to decide against the
appellant. To this again, I still said NO,
that I w ould not do anything to pervert
the cause o f justice A yo Salam i added.
Prior to the Sokoto case issue,
deadlocked as a com bined result of
insubordination and protection o f
integrity, as w ell as the core values o f

Retired Justice
Kayode Eso has
never relented in his
condemnation o f his
serving colleagues
ivho are knee-deep
in corruption.
He had once
observed that some
judges had made the
habit o f writing two
different
judgements stuffed
in their breast
pockets...to be
purchased by the
highest bidder in a
suit.

the Judicial process, the present crises

started w ith the petition w idely
advertised b y one Senator Iyiola
Om isore over the judicial dism issal of
Governor O nyilola o f Osun State. In the
petition, the Senator threw caution to
the winds, alleging that the panel o f
Justices w as bribed.
He therefore threatened that the said
justices as w ell as Justice Salam i who
em panelled them w ould be dealt with.
In his incisive analysis of the activities
in the judiciary since independence, the
first High Court Judge o f the Form er
South Eastern State, Justice Peter Odo
Effiong Bassey subm its that w hat was
regarded as the watchdog and hope o f
the com m on m an had becom e a
departed glory. He casts aspersions on
the judiciary, w hich he served for
decades as a ju rist and writes off the
institution as a b ig blot on the polity7.
T he seem ing erosion o f the pristine
glory of judiciary started im m ediately
after the colonial m asters had left the
shores o f this country to the
adm inistration o f the place b y her
indigenes.
Confessing that since th e last 10 years
of dem ocracy, all had not been sm ooth
sailing in the judiciary, a form er
President o f the Court o f Appeal
(before the em battled Salam i), Justice
Abdullahi M ustapha gave a succinct
account o f the sham e on w hich an
Enugu Court o f Appeal brought upon
judiciary.
Although, he tried to give a clean breast
of the goings- on in the judiciary in the
Newsgrain

Magazine