Headship Of COTRIMCO: Salami’s Rejection Of Appointment Elicits Calls For Reconstitution

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Justice Samuel Walter Onnoghen
Justice Samuel Walter Onnoghen
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Headship Of COTRIMCO: Salami’s Rejection Of Appointment Elicits Calls For Reconstitution

Justice Samuel Walter Onnoghen
Justice Samuel Walter Onnoghen

Following Justice Ayo Salami rejection of his appointment as the chairman of the Corruption and Financial Crime Cases Trial Monitoring Committee (COTRIMCO), stakeholders have called on Justice Walter Onnoghen, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), to reconstitute the membership of the committee.

Although Salami attributed his action to the fact that the National Judicial Commission (NJC) and the courts abandoned him during his trying time during the immediate past administration, stakeholders, including Lawyers, Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) and analysts said at the weekend that the development may have provided opportunity for the Chief Justice of Nigeria to effect changes in the composition which had been criticised.

Salami was reported to have made a veiled reference to the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration’s refusal to reinstate him as the President of the Court of Appeal despite NJC’s recommendation that he should be returned to office.

Before Salami came out to give the true reason he rejected the offer, they had been public outcry against membership of the committee seen as either defending some of the alleged corrupt high profile Nigerians or are sympathetic to their course, a development they say will be counterproductive to the current anti-corruption campaign of the government.

Salami’s rejection, according to some analysts may have brought to the fore government’s handling of sensitive issues such as appointments, without seeking their consent before announcing to the public.

There had been instances in the past where some appointments were announced only for the people to come out publicly to reject the offer.

The CJN had on September 27, announced the appointment of the former President of the Court of Appeal as the chairman of COTRIMCO. Other members of the committee are Chief Judge, Borno State, Justice Kashim Zannah; the Chief Judge of Imo State, Justice P.O. Nnadi; Chief Judge, Delta State, Justice Marsahal Umukoro, Chief Judge, Oyo State, Justice M. L. Abimbola.

They also include the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. A.B Mahmoud (SAN); former NBA Presidents, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN); Mr. Olisa Agbakoba (SAN); Mr. J.B Daudu (SAN); and Mr. Augustine Alegeh (SAN)

Others are Dr. Garba Tetengi (SAN); Mrs. R.I Inga, Representative of Non-Governmental Organisations, representative from the Ministry of Justice, the representative from the Institute of Chartered Accountants of Nigeria, ICAN, as well as the Secretary of the NJC, Mr. Gambo Saleh.

The committee is charged with the duty of monitoring the handling of corruption-related cases in the courts with a view to ensuring justice in all matters brought before the courts.

Reacting to the development, Monday Ubani, legal practitioner and second Vice President of NBA, Goddy Uwazurike, legal practitioner, Wale Ogunade, legal practitioner, Comrade Igbini Emmanuel, Debo Adeniran and Barrister Henry Iyalla, spokesman of Ijaw Youth Congress (IYC), said the rejection of the appointment should not be the end of the committee, which they all agreed was a welcome development and would assist in curbing bribery on the bench.

Adeniran said: “What the CJN should do is to review the membership of the committee because if the chairman does not have adequate confidence in the members, he will not be able to achieve the desired result. We have actually identified it in the past that even some of the lawyers that are part of that committee have cases that are being handled by the judges they are supposed to monitor. So, definitely they will not be able to feel free with matters that will be relating with those judges.

“Again there are some members that have had confrontations with the anti-graft agencies in the past, so they will not be upright or work in support of the agencies.

“Even some of them had confrontations with the same Justice Salami in the past when they met in some of the cases that were pending in some of the courts, so he will not feel comfortable working with such lawyers. The CJN will do well to reconstitute the membership of the committee.”

Ubani said he has the fear that the members may not have the time to carry out the assignment as they would want to, pointing out that some members of the committee are very busy and engaged in their private businesses that they will have little or no time to answer the call to national duty.

He however added, “If Justice Salami does not want to accept the job, there are other people that may want to do that job. The CJN can go ahead and replace him and get some other persons who will like to do it. The CJN should go ahead and replace him.”

Uwazurike noted that Justice Salami was wrongly accused and frustrated out of the bench adding that the judiciary ought to have assuaged his feelings by apologising to him before calling him for a national duty.

“So we lawyers and judges should not forget that he was wrongly accused, so it is possible that he is saying clear my name first, then ask me to join you in cleaning the mess. That is why I said it is a conflict between what they have done in the past and what he is asked to do.

“The way out is that the National Judicial Council should issue a statement exonerating him from the past accusations and apologise to him formally. He has retired and of course they should hold that ceremonial departure for him. When they have done their own then the man can come up and work, that is the way I am seeing it,” he said.

Ogunade, who described Justice Salami as a man of impeccable character who would not want his name to be rubbished, said the best way out of the situation is for the CJN to reconstitute the membership of the committee.

He said in the alternative, the CJN may want to appoint another person to head the committee, but added that if all Justice Onnoghen wanted is to rid the bench of corruption, he should retain Justice Salami and reconstitute the committee with people with unblemished character.

Igbini, who commended the CJN for setting up the committee, said the rejection of the appointment by Justice Salami has provided the CJN the opportunity to tinker with the membership of the committee in view of public outcry over some of the appointees who in the past had been alleged to have been involved in aiding and abetting corruption, economic and financial crimes, either in their capacities as Judges or Lawyers.

Iyalla towed similar path by asking the CJN to review the membership of the committee for it to achieve its desired objective.

It would be recalled that after the announcement of the committee, the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) had on October 3, sent an open letter to Justice Onnoghen, urging him to use his “good offices and position to urgently revisit and review the composition” of the committee “to remove the risk of apparent and potential conflicts between the work of the committee and the private practice of some of its members who are handling high-profile cases of corruption.”

In fact, not a few Nigerians raised eyebrow over the membership of the 15-man committee, which they claim includes people allegedly implicated in some conflicting challenges between the bench and the bar.

Although Salami was out of the country when he was appointed, he was reported to have sought an audience with the CJN upon his return, during which he expressed his reservation with Justice Onnoghen, after which he wrote to reject the appointment.

Justice Salami, is said to have consulted widely with leaders on the Bench and in the Bar before resolving with his family to reject the offer.

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