After studying the article entitled “Blessed Are The Crooked Judges’ by Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, a authorized thoughts for whom I’ve nothing however respect, I can’t however agree that the article aptly captures the choices reached on the 108th Assembly of the Nationwide Judiciary Fee (NJC) held on April 29 and 30, 2025.
Nonetheless, the problems raised within the stated article compelled one to do some extra analysis, and likewise make some enquiries, on the subject material. It’s based mostly on my findings from these enquiries that, as a lawyer myself, I have to disagree with Odinkalu on his inferences and conclusions, particularly as they relate to the case of Justice Jane Inyang, JCA. And my areas of disagreement are as follows:
In that article, the extremely revered Odinkalu, a former chairman of the Nigerian Human Rights Fee (NHRC), lamented the decay within the nation’s Judiciary and the way corrupt judges had been day by day allowed to get away with hardly a slap on the wrist, recycled after which promoted into even increased places of work to proceed with their rape of the judiciary, and by extension, the nation.
As deep and well-researched as Prof. Odinkalu’s submission is, nevertheless, it fell into the entice of not solely generalisation, however mistaken narrative which the NJC choice seems to have conveyed on the matter, and which the media and public commentators have since latched upon.
That narrative is that this mistaken propensity to intentionally painting a correctly and professionally granted order of Justice Jane Inyang, an ex parte order, as being out of order, just because it was manipulated, approach past its scope, by individuals with a hidden agenda to realize a egocentric finish. And the choose, who under no circumstances benefitted from this malfeasance, was made to hold the can.
And the outcome? An motion that might, at worst, be an sincere skilled misinterpretation of the legislation by a choose, was approximated to corruption by those that ought to, and certainly do, know higher. And who’ve subsequently gone forward to malign the judex as corrupt.
From his article, Odinkalu additionally received offered this false narrative that has no foundation within the information of the matter. For the information of the matter, which truly converse for themselves, would have led to a very completely different conclusion if there have been no extraneous influences dropped at bear on the matter.
On the floor, it accuses Justice Inyang of granting an ex parte order to a receiver supervisor to promote a property in dispute, even when the matter was nonetheless on the interlocutory stage.
However nothing might be farther from the reality. Inyang didn’t grant an unusual ex parte order for the sale of the stated property. Her order was made alongside different orders in assist of the receivership in step with the provisions of Sections 555 to 563 of the Firms and Allied Issues Act, 2020.
So, to start out with, it wa-#s not an unlawful order. And court docket data are replete with precedents of comparable orders.
However that’s not the one element the NJC elected to look away from in its dizzying verdict on Justice Inyang.
To start with, the stated order was made on June 14, 2023, in a matter, Go well with No. FHC/UY/CS/46/2023, earlier than Justice Inyang on the Federal Excessive Courtroom Uyo Judiciary Division.
Two days later, on June 16, 2023, Justice Inyang’s title was printed as a nominee for elevation to the Courtroom of Attraction.
By conference, she was directed to cease sitting and return all recordsdata to the Administrative Choose for reassignment. She did simply that, successfully taking her fingers off the case.
She was not, due to this fact, ready to know that her order, which, by the best way, was not in finality, was not even served on the Respondent, as she directed.
As each diligent choose dealing with a receiver supervisor matter, she granted the order to guard the properties from being destroyed by the debtor, and directed that or not it’s served by publication in a nationwide day by day to place everybody on discover.
That service, in actual fact, is the accountability of the court docket bailiff and different court docket officers, supported by safety personnel.
She additional adjourned the matter for report of compliance, the place all events, if served would seem earlier than the court docket to make their respective instances.
That was what was anticipated of a diligent choose, and was precisely what she did. And two days latter, she was promoted to the Attraction Courtroom.
However the verdict of the NJC and the deliberate media spin and misinterpretation thereof have a tendency to color the image that there was one thing fishy in regards to the ex parte order granted by Justice Inyang. Satirically, what Justice Inyang did is professionally sound, and in line with world greatest follow.
The case which principally arose from a mortgage transaction that went bitter, was introduced by a Receiver Supervisor. In issues of this nature, the method is often to grant an Ex parte order to guard the asset, on this case, Udeme Essiet’s firms, petrol stations and different companies, from being plundered and dissipated, pending the ultimate dedication of the matter.
Because the order was interim, it’s often served on the Respondent, who on receipt recordsdata his personal case and objections on the adjourned date. On the adjourned date, the court docket can resolve to revoke or differ the interim order. This, Justice Inyang had no alternative of doing as a result of she had moved on.
The corporate affected, we hear, is on enchantment, which is its proper treatment.
However, for the avoidance of doubt, after Justice Inyang made the order, handed over the case file and moved on to imagine responsibility on the Courtroom of Attraction, the Federal Excessive Courtroom system, both by omission or fee, did not serve the order on the Respondent, whereas the candidates, the bailiffs and all we went on to promote the stated property, utilizing this similar non permanent order – all these, with out the data of Justice Inyang who had since moved on.
We hear that the listening to of the substantive matter of the case, in addition to all different associated points remains to be pending earlier than the identical court docket, whereas the Respondent has gone on enchantment. So, why the hurry to maneuver in opposition to Justice Inyang?
Curiously, the case/petition in opposition to this alleged offence of Justice Inyang was filed lengthy after the matter had grow to be statute barred. That petition ought to have been filed inside six months of the order, however the petition which the NJC acted upon to indict Justice Inyang got here a transparent 9 months after the stated order. That is in opposition to NJC’s established laws.
It will get even curiouser when the client of the property in dispute, Justice S. Essien, a choose of the Nationwide Industrial Courtroom, who’s not identified to Inyang, and who claimed to have purchased it for an uncle, was let off the hook, whereas Inyang was placed on trial, utilizing the identical information and proof. Equally, neither the court docket officers, bailiffs, safety operatives and all who facilitated this back-door sale was disciplined.
Justice Essien, we gathered, instructed one other panel that he had by no means met Justice Inyang all his life. That it was, in actual fact, an uncle of his in the US of America who noticed an public sale gross sales advert and requested him to characterize him. He subsequently put in a bid, and was profitable. All this whereas, Justice Inyang was on the Courtroom of Attraction and didn’t know what was occurring.
We gathered that this was why the petitioner apologized to Justice Inyang earlier than the Mary Odili-chaired NJC panel, and withdrew his allegation of bribery, saying that he was now satisfied that the order was not induced by any bribe to justice Inyang. In reality, this alternate was truly stated to have been recorded by the NJC panel, which nonetheless went forward to indict Inyang.
Much more curious, is the truth that even with the recording of those, the total NJC panel chaired by the CJN nonetheless went forward to uphold the indictment of Justice Inyang, regardless of that the proprietor of the stated companies withdrew his allegation of bribery and corruption in opposition to Justice Inyang, insisting that the vexatious order was not bribe-induced, and that he solely made the accusation out of anger.
In our opinion, as soon as there’s no proof of bribery, corruption and undue affect, the choice of a choose can not quantity to a misconduct. The treatment is enchantment.
Our view is that since each the Justice Odili panel and the total panel chaired by the CJN couldn’t set up a case of corruption and bribery in opposition to Justice Inyang, the petition ought to have been struck out or, on the very worst, concern a warning or delicate warning.
The NJC’s selections on this circumstance have achieved incalculable injury to the title and repute of Justice Inyang, who, like all of them on the panels, additionally has a reputation to guard.
For she has each proper to be happy with, and jealously guard, her ancestry. In spite of everything, she is the granddaughter of the late Barr. Asuquo Etim Inyang of Ikono Ito, within the Odukpani space of Cross River State. Her grandfather, is the primary lawyer from the previous Jap Area (and the South) to be referred to as to bar in each the England and Nigerian. He was admitted to the Interior Temple in 1921 and referred to as to bar in 1924 – in each England and Nigeria.
After all, it’s these and several other different inconsistencies between proof and conclusions that now appear to present grain to the speculations that Justice Inyang could certainly be a sufferer of conspiracy in excessive locations. As an example, may or not it’s true that Justice Inyang, who was appointed to the Courtroom of Attraction barely two years in the past, was not the popular selection of the institution? Is that this seeming plot to garbage her a part of a much bigger plot to take her out and nominate this different most popular choose?
How a lot of this has received to do together with her well-known unbiased and uncompromising stance on a number of instances the place extraneous pressures have allegedly been mounted on judges? For Justice Jane Inyang it was, who gave a dissenting judgment within the Ogun State election petition that upheld Gov. Dapo Abiodun’s election. She had insisted that the Electoral legal guidelines weren’t considerably complied with within the governorship election and had referred to as for a recent election.
Justice Inyang additionally delivered the lead judgement which upheld the dying sentence handed on Chief Rahman Adedoyin, the Ile-Ife hotelier convicted for the homicide, in his resort, of a put up graduate scholar of the Obafemi Awolowo College who had lodged within the resort.
Are we now stranded with a judiciary the place profession development is straight associated to the willingness to bend the rule and adjust to the whims of politicians and people who wield political powers?
When did it grow to be a criminal offense for Attraction Courtroom judges to vary on issues involving the ruling celebration? Should they all the time tow the official line of defending individuals in workplace?
Does it imply that the Nigerian judiciary now not has a spot for unbiased judges who stand by their conviction? Is Justice Inyang now a sufferer of her independence and neutral interpretation and administration of the legislation?
Lastly how a lot of Justice Inyang’s travails might be put right down to the insinuations of gossips and petty jealously, particularly amongst feminine judges, whereby judges instigate, typically baseless, petitions in opposition to fellow judges to do away with them? Did the current recognition of Justice Inyang by a nationwide newspaper, and the award that got here with that recognition, play any half in successful her new enemies amongst envious feminine colleagues?
And, to consider it, why are girls oftentimes the largest obstacles to the development of fellow girls?
With a girl as Chief Justice of Nigeria, and one other lady as President of the Courtroom of Attraction, one would have anticipated extra safety for feminine judges – or within the least, truthful listening to. However the reverse seems to be the case.
This author recollects that it was additionally below the CJNship of one other lady, Justice Aloma Muktar, that the duo of Justices Glady Olotu and Rita Ajumogobia had been unfairly handled and dismissed as judges of the Federal Excessive Courtroom by the identical NJC.
Fortunately, the courts would ultimately void the choices of the NJC on these two judges and reinstate them. It’s gratifying, due to this fact, to be taught that Justice Inyang has already filed to enchantment the choice of the NJC.
However, if certainly the NJC has lastly woken as much as the yelling have to cleanse the judiciary and the corruption that stinks to excessive heaven therein, the Justice Jane Inyang case is the mistaken place to start out from, particularly when a number of judges who’ve clearly compromised on election petitions and different partisan political issues have been allowed to go scot-free, at the same time as they day by day jeopardise Nigeria’s democracy and the nation at massive.
Wrongfully and mischievously scapegoating Justice Jane Iyang, can not wipe out the mess. It solely worsens it.
Who, as an illustration, would sanction (or petition in opposition to) a sure Kekere-Ekun who sat on the panel that, in opposition to all standard reasoning, awarded the Imo State governorship election to the candidate who completed fourth on the polls? Or a Justice Monica Bolna’an Dongban-Mensem if she is accused, as an illustration, of getting been backed by the native APC institution to not directly oversee the curious judicial annihilation of the PDP and its elected officers in her house state of Plateau?
Would these jurists even be those who ought to now sit in judgement over these and different allegations if and when the petitions do come?
To start with, that a number of selections of the NJC have been unable to face the take a look at of dispassionate interrogation earlier than a reliable court docket calls to query the structure and the composition of the NJC, in addition to the method of arriving at its verdicts. It additionally calls to query, the thought of permitting serving judges/Justices to take a seat on the NJC panels, as situations abound whereby these jurists are allowed to take a seat in judgement over issues by which they’ve verifiable pecuniary pursuits. Furthermore, it may typically be troublesome for some serving judges to be fully unbiased in issues that concern officers of the identical authorities of the day, who’re their employers.
It will not be misplaced, due to this fact, to take away the CJN and serving judges from sitting on the NJC and likewise to completely evaluate and overhaul the powers of the NJC.
More and more, the NJC, as an alternative of serving to assist preserve the very best degree of professionalism amongst judicial officers, has grow to be a burial floor for some judges to intimidate colleagues and beat them into line each time they present the slightest signal of unbiased mindedness.
Sure, this author could not know Jane Iyang personally, but when her clearly excellent footprints within the judiciary are something to go by, it then signifies that this unmasked injustice in opposition to the Justice should not be allowed to face.
If the NJC has a differing opinion from her understanding and/or interpretation of the legislation, the petitioner ought to have been inspired to enchantment the choice – an possibility that’s already being explored. Nonetheless, to insinuate corruption, and to go forward and selectively punish the choose for this raises a whole lot of questions as to ulterior motives. A warning or warning ought to have sufficed on this occasion. Nonetheless, making it appear to be a case of corruption is like working in direction of a predetermined final result: to indict Inyang by any means attainable.
That in all probability explains why the Justice virtually acquired no safety from the president of the Courtroom of Attraction. Or why the recommendation of the Chief Choose of the Federal Excessive Courtroom didn’t seem to have been sought (or not thought of) on this matter. For the Federal Excessive Courtroom has the experience in receiver-manager instances in addition to different company and industrial complicated issues.
By the way, this author believes there may be nonetheless ample room for the NJC, and the institution to wriggle themselves out of this messy misadventure. We hear that Justice Inyang’s solicitors, the revered Tayo Oyetibo (SAN) have made a passionate enchantment to the CJN for a evaluate of the matter. And we do hope that Justice will lastly be served.
Related, we hope that the revered Prof. Odinkalu now has a more true and higher image to attract a extra knowledgeable conclusion. The identical goes for most people and different media commentators who’ve, till now, been fed with the mistaken narrative of corruption, bribery and misconduct, at the same time as we wait on the NJC to do the suitable factor.
*Alex Morgan Esq. lives in Port Harcourt