My Indictment: NJC Was Misled - Adeniran

AdeniranFormer Acting Chief Judge of Oyo State, Justice Afolabi Adeniran (Rtd), in this interview insists that the NJC was misled in arriving at the decision that purportedly indicted him and two other judges in Oyo State. He spoke with WALE ADELE. Excerpts:

For some time now, there has been a crisis in the Oyo State Judiciary, can you trace the genesis of this crisis?
I know there has been a crisis. But what caused it baffles me because there is no cause for it. But maybe if you identify any of them, I will be able to speak on it.
One of such is the retirement of some of you by the National Judicial Council (NJC) , and another is the strike and boycott of the court by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA). Let me start from the NJC recommendation to the governor of Oyo State that some judges should be retired. The NJC consists of eminent people, and it is the best thing that has happened to the judiciary in Nigeria. But I think the council has been misled by the panel set up to look into certain issues because in all the cases referred to by the panel, there was total absence of fair hearing. Let’s take the case of Justice Iyabo Yerima. Frankly speaking, though I am not privileged to see the proceedings of the NJC, as far as I am concerned, I don’t know what she had done to warrant such a drastic action.

They referred to a case, which she did in 2005. A judge sits in court and decides cases according to his/her own understanding of the law and the facts before him/her. There is room for appeal if anybody is dissatisfied. You do not challenge a judgment by petition but through appeal. And the High Court is the lowest of the three superior courts of record – there are the Court of Appeal and the Apex Court , the Supreme Court. The first case which was mentioned in the petition related to a murder case against one Akinsola a.k.a Tokyo. Justice Yerimah’s court was the fourth court to which that case was assigned. Each time the case went to a court, the lawyers would allege bias against the judge, then the case would be transferred. In the same vein, they wrote a petition against her. When she saw the petition, she minuted thus: “My Lord, I am sending this case back to you for reassignment to another judge because there is an allegation of bias.” I looked through all the papers; I did not find any trace of bias, and I referred the case back to her and said: “I did not see any evidence of bias. In any event, your court is the fourth court, are they going to take this case to every judge in the state judiciary before it is disposed off?” It was at my own instance that she continued with the case.

In the record of proceedings, there is no judge in this world that is perfect. There is room for mistake(s) and that is why there is a hierarchical system, that is, from the High Court to the Court of Appeal and from the Court of Appeal to the Supreme Court. So, if there is any error or miscarriage of justice, by the time you go through the appellate courts, it will have been detected and corrected. But if you write a petition because a judge has given a judgment that is against you, then you are messing up the whole system.

Are you saying there is more to these petitions?
Yes. We have to go behind all the rulings in the cases to actually know the motives of the petitions. The second case had to do with the last local government elections. The government of Senator Rasidi Ladoja, about two weeks to the time he was to vacate office, arranged local government elections. Some political parties were aggrieved; they came to court asking the court to stop the elections. The normal thing for a judge to do is to say “all of you, stay action until I look at the merits and demerits of this case.” By issuing a temporary injunction, it was just along the right line. She did perfectly the right thing, which any judge sitting on the case would do. I don’t see what has caused a petition by that decision. Everybody is entitled to justice. It is not about one side. If there are two parties quarrelling, you first of all say: “The two of you, during this period of uncertainty, both of you, stay on the ice, let me look into it.” I don’t see what could have warranted the petition. And even when they made the hue and cry, and the case was reassigned to other judges, the judges made similar orders.

Why is her own different?
The third petition is that they said she gave a judgment, which controverted the judgment of the Supreme Court. I have seen the proceedings of that case. The case first came before me; and the lawyer said: “My Lord, I want you to withdraw from this case because you were involved in the impeachment proceedings that led to this case.” And I said: “If that is your view, I agree with you. I agree with the senior counsel who has an objection to my hearing this case. In the circumstance, I am transferring this case to another judge.” It was transferred to Justice Yerima. Then, they all left for her court. I saw the proceedings; they were so rowdy. The whole court was like a market place. In the proceedings, she said: “The atmosphere is not right for taking any motion. In the meantime, all parties should maintain the status quo.” She has not made any order to controvert the decision of the Supreme Court.

And in any event, if a person brings a case to court, no matter how frivolous it is, the registry will accept the case if he pays the normal rate. The case goes to the Chief Judge who will assign it. The judge cannot say, “Take it back; the case is frivolous.” The judge has to hear and pronounce on the case even if the court has no jurisdiction. There is nothing strange in somebody challenging the decision of the Supreme Court – if it is seeking to know the implication. For example, the Supreme Court judgments are pleaded in so many lands or chieftaincy matters as excel or resicarta. The judge will examine the Supreme Court judgment to see whether or not it actually affects the situation. It is the duty of the judge to take that Supreme Court judgment, read it, and decide whether or not it has the legal effect the lawyer is canvassing. If it does not, the judge will pronounce. So, there is nothing strange in Supreme Court’s judgment being brought to court. There are so many of them, especially in land matters. And sometimes, we say, though you have brought Supreme Court’s judgment, the parties in that case are different from this one, and the ratio of that case is different from this one – it can be distinguished.

The law reports are replete with many cases. People have pleaded Supreme Court’s judgments, which judges have commented on. But in that particular case, she did not make any order contrary to what the Supreme Court did.

Can you give examples of judgments like that?
It is a pity we are not in the office. I retired since August last year; I have no access to court records. I would have given you examples of many cases in which Supreme Court’s judgments had been pleaded and we had ruled that: “No, this judgment does not avail you.” As I said, this one had not even gone to that level, she had not made any pronouncement on the judgment. On that day, they were so unruly that she had to phone me that they were trying to attack her in the court. I had to send for police escort to pilot her out of the court premises. This is the situation we found ourselves in Oyo State.

Why do you think it is so?
It is all politics. Since the impeachment of Ladoja, the politics of Oyo State had become very murky, and once you take a stand, you want to use all means to see that you achieve what you want.

Are you saying that the state judiciary has been politicised?
It was politicised. If, for example, a judge has a case, and it involves the government, especially the present government, the judge will now be put in a state of fear. If I say this, they say I am pro-this; if I say that, they will say I am pro-that. That is not the law. A judge should be fearless, should decide cases according to the law and according to his or her conscience. Expressing fear that people will read meaning into pronouncements, that is no longer justice. You have to be firm and decide cases according to the law, according to the facts before you, and according to your own conviction.

Now, the leadership of NBA has called on its members to boycott certain courts. How do you react to this?
I don’t think it is right, though I will say that I have respect for the association. The bar is my constituency and I can’t do anything without it. But I think the Ibadan branch of the bar has been misled by a group of people who happen to occupy some vintage positions in the branch. In the first instance, if you are boycotting a court, the court is not your client. You are telling your client that you are not going for his case. The contract is between the lawyer and his client – you are breaching the contract between you and your client. It is the client that has briefed the lawyer to go and present his/her case. Boycott is not the right thing. There are a lot of avenues for settlement of disputes. Even if the government does anything, you can give it notice. I can tell you that in 2004, when Hon. Justice Lakanmi was removed by the Ladoja administration, the Chief Justice of Nigeria purposely came to Ibadan to have a dialogue with the governor. I was one of the judges that welcomed him. So, there should be, first of all, a sort of dialogue. You don’t take an action before you start thinking. I think that, in the first instance, to say, “I’m boycotting the court;” did you hear from that judge?

Did you seek to have an audience with the judge? We should be very careful. We always harp on due process and fair hearing, equity, good conscience. We must be seen to be an embodiment of all these qualities. It is not enough to say we read something in the newspapers. In this particular case (petition on Yerima), they said they read in the newspapers that Justices Yerima, Lakanmi and Adeniran had been recommended for compulsory retirement. The following day, they met and said they were boycotting the courts. Well, I am not affected because I retired in August 14, 2007. I have my letter accepting my notice of retirement and this is in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution. But in the case of Justice Yerima, it is a calculated attempt to ruin a career which she has built over the years.

Why do you think people will want to do that if there is no basis for it?
Well, we have to ask them. What is the motive? What do they stand to gain? Have they set out deliberately to ruin her career because she is a judge? Of course, if any judge will hesitate and say “Don’t let me decide this case because I don’t know what NJC will say,” that judge will be reduced to a mere puppet.

In this case, will you say the NJC has been fair?
The NJC relied on the report of a panel. There were two or three petitions against me. The NJC set up a panel to come and investigate. They fixed July 31 and August 1 (2007) to hear both sides. On July 31, I went to the panel’s sitting. It was then they told me there were three petitions against me. I had not seen any of these petitions before. And I told them, “My Lord, I have not seen any of the petitions.” As a matter of fact, before that day, I had petitioned NJC. I thought it was my own petition they wanted to come and investigate. Then, they said the petitioners should read the content of their petitions to my hearing…

Without you getting to see a copy before then?
Yes. Then, they read the petitions and later gave me a copy each. I said it was alright. I said, “Since you have two days to investigate this matter and today is the first, I will come and give my reply tomorrow. In the meantime, all these papers they have given me, I will go and study them. Tomorrow morning, I will be prepared to defend all the allegations.” Despite the fact that the notice was too short, I was prepared because I believed I did not do anything wrong. It was a case in which somebody was trying to quash an indictment. And I looked through the file, and found out that there was no way the indictment could stand. The arrowhead of this petition, in a similar way, quashed an indictment preferred against him by the Ondo State Government. What is wrong in Akala (Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala) coming to court to say, “I want this indictment quashed?” When you look at it, in a situation where you say you have petitions against somebody, you are supposed to tell him, “Come on March 26 to defend yourself.” But because the person indicted went to court, you backdated the report of the administrative panel to March 22, four days before he was written to come and defend himself. All these papers were exhibited in the originating summons. There is no judge worth his salt who will allow that indictment to stand. More so, I was guided by the case at the Supreme Court in Atiku Abubakar versus Olusegun Obasanjo, which was decided shortly before the case. All these are there to guide us. If a judge will say that because some people will be aggrieved, he will not do the right thing, then he is not fit to be a judge. Every judge stands like a rock of Gibraltar.

But that day, they said, “No, you just give your evidence.” Well, I said, “Alright, I have no document here.” They said, “Okay, you can do that tomorrow but give your oral evidence.” Then I went into the box; I called my office clerk in, and the office assistant who gave the evidence as to when some lawyers came to take the file away and removed some documents from the file. The secretary of the panel was writing down all these. But when the panel finally issued their report, all the pieces of evidence were not there. I said, “Alright, we’ve had the oral evidence. Tomorrow, we would submit the documents.” I was waiting for them to come when I saw a copy of their report already prepared. That same day, the report was dated August 1. I had to go to Abuja to go and submit it to the Chief Justice of Nigeria(CJN), Justice Kutigi, with a copy of the recommendation of the panel. I am sure the CJN kept the report, but when the panel submitted its own officially, it tallied with the one in my possession. Then, some lawyers too gathered together to write a similar petition - that this was what they suspected and that even the petitioners assisted the members of the panel to write the report. I wrote all these in the petition, which I wrote to the CJN. Now, I was thinking if there was going to be any investigation in the allegations made against Justice Yerima, it should be by another panel. Incidentally, it was the same set of people who came.

In what regard?
As I said, the NJC consists of eminent personalities. I have the greatest respect for them. What I am saying is that they have been misled, and I am saying they should have another look into these cases, assemble all the facts, question members of the panel to know why they did what they did. Why the hurry? If you said you were going to have a case for two days, you had it for one day. And that same day, you wrote a judgment without even allowing the accused to conclude his defence. Lawyers who were present at the hearing wrote a petition because they saw the illegal things that were going on. It was a charade.

It is reported that you said at the panel that the petition written against you was because you turned down a N8 million bribe. Are you still standing by this allegation?
I said it before the panel, and I will continue to repeat it:. N8 million was brought to my chambers and I refused it.

How did you know the sum total if you didn’t collect it?
They mentioned it to me.

What was it meant for?
Whatever it was, I was not ready to accept money from anybody. I would tell you that judges of Oyo State don’t accept bribe in order to decide cases. There is the culture of honesty in Oyo State judiciary.

How will you assess the judiciary under the military in comparison with what we are having now with the civilian dispensation?
The judiciary should be the same whether it is under the military or a civilian administration because the duty of the judge is to decide cases according to the law. The difference could be this: the military has the power to pass laws – there is no legislature - without consulting anybody, but the judge can’t say “I will not enforce the law.” That is the difference. The law passed by the military may be unpalatable but the judge has no choice. That is the law before him.

In a democratic setting, you still keep hearing of bribe being given and taken which was not common during the military era. Is this not an indictment of the judiciary?
The bribe you are talking about is not in the judiciary, but maybe in the other arms of government. Court judgments are not for sale. You decide cases consciously aware that your judgment is subject to appeal. So, if you muddle it up because you have corrupted yourself, then, of course, you will be exposed. And some people have been so exposed. In the last two years, the NBA has gone on strike at least two times. It is becoming a recurring problem… Quite a number of them are counsels to politicians and they are carrying their legal duties too far - beyond the limit of the ethics of the profession. There are decent and well-meaning lawyers in Oyo State that I can mention. And I am sure most of these people will not attend meetings where these decisions are taken.

Why…
I have never attended the NBA Ibadan branch meetings. I am not qualified to attend. I practised in Lagos and used to attend the meetings of the association in Lagos. I became a judge in 1992 and retired in August 2007. I had no opportunity of attending any bar meetings in Ibadan. I will not be able to.

Are you a happy man in retirement?
I feel fulfilled that, first of all, I did not disappoint my conscience throughout my almost 11 years stay in the Oyo State judiciary and I feel convinced that I did not do anything wrong.

Are you in support of lawyers being members of a trade union or behaving like trade unionists?
I don’t encourage it because, you see, the legal profession is a noble profession. We should do everything to uplift the standard of that profession and not to bring it down. No matter the cost, we should protect that profession. I became a lawyer because, in my school days, I used to see lawyers – the way they dressed, behaved in the public – and I resolved to become one of them. They impressed me and, because of that, I decided to read Law.

That was when?
I was called to the English Bar on July 18, 1967, the Nigerian Bar on June 26, 1970.

From what is going on in the judiciary, Oyo State especially, are there intrigues among the judges?

Well, when I was Acting Chief Judge, we used to hold monthly meetings – last Friday of every month. And if anybody had any grievance, you could bring it to the meeting. And we would discuss it amicably. We encouraged one another to bring whatever grievances we had to the meeting. In Oyo State judiciary then, there were no intrigues because you could raise any issue at the meeting. We are all judges and we are free to say anything.

We understand that it was the battle for succession for your post that caused these ripples. How true is this?

I don’t think so. What happened was, under the Constitution of Nigeria, when an acting CJ is appointed, his tenure of office is three months. But the NJC can extend the tenure on the request of the governor of the state. In my own case, the governor of Oyo State, Senator Ladoja, put up a request that he would like my acting appointment renewed because he did not want to appoint any acting CJ. Based on that letter, the NJC continued to recommend renewal from time to time.

During that period, are you saying some other people were not lining up for the office?
The judges were unanimous that we should not allow politics to erode the quality of the bench. When Senator Ladoja’s term of office was coming to an end, he sent somebody to me, one of our traditional chiefs, that he wanted to take certain actions. He knew that those actions would be challenged in court and that I should give him the assurance that all would be upheld. And I said “No.” I said, “One, I don’t have any control over any judge.” Once a case is attached to a court, there is no CJ that can go to that judge and say, “You must decide it this way.” If a case is before me too, I must decide the case in accordance with the law and the facts. I said it was impossible for me, Afolabi Adeniran, to give such an undertaking. The next thing I saw was that I was removed.

Did you have an insight into some of the actions that were about to be taken?
One of them, probably, maybe he wanted to hold the local government elections and he believed that people might challenge him, especially as they were saying there were no voters’ register. In my own conscience, I could never give such an undertaking. Even if I did, could I enforce it? Could I go to a judge and say, “This is the way you must decide this case.” In any event, I can’t do it in my own conscience. The next thing I saw was that I was removed despite the subsisting order of the NJC. And I held nobody any grudge. In fact, I attended the meeting of judges called immediately after my removal and participated fully. The minutes of the meetings are there.