Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar Tomorrow, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, will bow out of service after attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70. She remains an exemplary lesson in leadership and service to fatherland, writes Davidson Iriekpen As it is with everything that has a beginning, an end will be due some day; the tenure of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, will come to an end tomorrow by which time she would have attained the mandatory retirement age of 70 years. And for a woman, who rose to the peak of her career literally scandal-free, Justice Mukhtar has no doubt served her fatherland meritoriously. Growing up at a time it was almost a taboo to send a female child to school, Justice Mukhtar survived the odds to unarguably become a woman of many firsts. She is the first female lawyer from Northern Nigeria, first female judge of the High Court in Kano State judiciary, the first female justice of the Court of Appeal, the first female justice of the Supreme Court and the first female CJN. When she was appointment by the President Goodluck Jonathan to head the nation’s judiciary, there were reactions as to whether she deserved the office and how capable she was for such an elevated post. Some said Mukhtar would definitely inherit backlog of judicial headaches and wondered how she would go about solving them on a field that had become a ‘nightmare’ for even the past male occupants. With the way she discharged her functions, there is no doubt that she would for a long remain a model for many Nigerians, including lawyers and litigants. In the future, when her story would be told, she would be hailed as an amazon who came and instead of being part of the rot she met in the system, decided to cleanse the sector and instill transparency, dedication and hard work. Before her coming to office in 2012 as the CJN, the judiciary was serious in trouble. Everyone, including its members, knew this for a fact. Both in the courtrooms and outside, everybody knew what was going on. Judgments and orders were traded like ingredients in the open market or provision shops. Hundreds of millions and even billions of naira exchanged hands between litigants and judges for cases to be won. Even lawyers were not left off the rot as they were shortchanging their clients. The NJC, which is the constitutional body responsible for the discipline of erring judges had long being in existence. But it was just a toothless bulldog. No matter the petition written to council on the misconduct of a judge, nothing would come out of it. The question then was: “Who would bell the cat?” Soon after, President Goodluck Jonathan nominated Justice Mukhtar as the new CJN. This again necessitated the question: “Will a woman make a difference or succeed where the men folk failed? But today, under Mukhtar, the reverse is the case. Before the very eyes of Nigerians, she has proven to be the most courageous to have attained the position in recent times. So far, she has shown that what a man can do, a woman can do even better. Another worry some Nigerians had was whether for an institution that seriously needed to get off the abyss it had found itself, the two years Mukhtar had to spend in office would be enough for her to make substantial impact. But she proved them wrong. Today, testimonies abound that she has proved all the doubting Thomases wrong. Under her, the fear of the NJC was the beginning of wisdom. Judges were very conscious and sensitive to their jobs for fear of being petitioned to the council. They now know that once a complaint is lodged against them, the body will immediately begin investigation. Unscrupulous lawyers have been cut to size. She has demonstrated her disposition to the anomalies embarrassing the judiciary. For instance, while inaugurating the 2012 biennial conference for judges last year, she warned against corruption on the bench and vowed to fish out corrupt judges and administer appropriate sanctions on them. “I urge that you reform yourselves and allow yourselves to be reformed by amending your conduct that brings dishonour to the judiciary as an institution.” Earlier, while fielding questions from the Senate before the confirmation of her appointment in July 2012, Mukhtar had admitted that there was corruption in the courts, and vowed to lead by example in stamping it out. She had also at some time expressed concern over the quality of judgments emanating from various courts in the country, insisting that public confidence and trust in the judiciary has nosedived. Speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2013 refresher course for judicial officers, organised by the National Judicial Institute (NJI), in Abuja, the CJN noted that “a public uproar or placard-carrying scenario against the judgment of a court of record is not to the credit of the judiciary as an arm of government. “A judge should write in a simple and unambiguous manner such that it leaves no one in doubt as to what the judgment has addressed. A judgment should meet the justice of the matter or controversies between the contending parties. It is certainly not good for a judgment to be capable of more than one interpretation otherwise why was the judge called upon to intervene in the first place? “Where therefore a judge is found to be complicit in the writing and delivery of a judgment, the NJC, as the constitutional regulatory body, will not hesitate to wield the big stick,” she said. It was against this background that the council under her wielded the big stick against Justice Abubakar Talba of an Abuja High Court, after he was found guilty of handing an “unreasonable” sentence to a self-confessed pension thief, John Yakubu Yusufu. The council consequently suspended the embattled judge for one year without any form of remuneration. Talba had on January 28, directed Yusufu to pay a fine of N750,000, shortly after the accused person who was a former Deputy Director in the pension office, admitted before the trial court that he conspired with six other civil servants and stole about N23billion from the Police Pension Fund. Though section 309 of the Criminal Procedure Act, CPA, upon which the accused person was charged to court by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), gave the court the choice of sentencing the accused to a maximum of two years imprisonment with a fine, however, Justice Talba, used his discretion and ordered Yusufu to only pay a fine and go home. Before then, the council had recommended the compulsory retirement of Justice Charles Efang Archibong of the Federal High Court, Lagos and Justice Thomas Naron of the Plateau State High Court of Justice. The two judges were found guilty of professional misconduct. As the CJN, the occupant of the office also heads other powerful judicial bodies such as the Legal Practitioners’ Privileges Committee (LPPC), National Judicial Council and Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC). Yet none of those before Mukhtar could take the bull by the horn to clean the rot in the system. Knowing full well that the judiciary is so critical to the sustenance of justice and democracy, which should not be allowed to be bastardised or brought into disrepute, Mukhtar has not left anybody in doubt that the two years she would spend as the CJN would be remarkable.” Mukhtar, who hails from Kano State, was born on November 20, 1944. She attended St. George Primary School, Zaria and St. Bartholomew’s School, Wusasa, Zaria, Kaduna State. She attended the Rossholme School for Girls, East Brent, Somerset, England; Reading Technical College, Reading, Berkshire, England and Gibson and Weldon College of Law, England. She was called to the English Bar in November, 1966 and to the Nigerian Bar in 1967. She began her career as Pupil State Counsel, Ministry of Justice, Northern Nigeria, 1967, Office of the Legal Draftsman, Interim Common Services Agency, Magistrate Grade I, North Eastern State Government, 1971, Chief Registrar, Kano State Government Judiciary, 1973, Judge of the High Court of Kano State, 1977 to 1987, Justice of the Court of Appeal, 1987 to 1993, during which she served in the Ibadan division of the court. A life member of the International Association of Women Lawyers, Mukhtar, on her assumption of office on July 16, became the nation’s first woman to occupy that position. She is, however, expected to vacate the seat on November 20, 2014 upon attaining the mandatory 70 years. She has also served as judge of the high court of Kano state, Justice of the Court of Appeal, and presiding justice of the Court of Appeal, from 1993 to 2005, prior to her appointment at the Supreme Court of Nigeria. She is a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, Fellow of the institute of Arbitrators; she was also made a life Bencher in 2007. In the course of her career, she has received several awards; a Gold Merit Award for Contribution to the Development of Law in Kano State (1993); recognition by the International Federation of Women Lawyers (in 1989 and 2003); she was inducted to the Nigerian Hall of fame (2005). It was in 2006 that she was conferred with the National Honor of Commander of the Order of Niger (CON) and the Grand Commander of the Order of the Niger (GCON). Seen as an introvert and a true picture of what a modern judge should be, Mukhtar exhibited part of her attributes when, alongside Justices George Oguntade and Walter Onnoghen, almost voided the outcome of the 2007 election that brought the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and now President Jonathan to power. While the quartet of Justices Kutigi, Katsina-Alu, Niki Tobi and Dahiru Musdapher dismissed the appeal by then presidential candidate of the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP), Justices Mukhtar, George Oguntade and Onnoghen held dissenting views. They maintained that the allegation of substantial non-compliance with
Posted on: Wed, 19 Nov 2014 06:26:46 +0000
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