By Eric Teniola
Crisis is not new to the Supreme Court in Nigeria. From inception, there has always been one crisis or the other, in that court. In 1958, the incumbent chief justice of the federation, Justice Stafford Foster Sutton was to retire. He had earlier served as attorney-general of Kenya from 1944 to 1948, and served also as attorney-general of British Malaya from 1948 to 1950.
The expectation was that his number two man, Justice Samuel Olumuyiwa Jibowu (1899-1959) was to succeed him. Justice Jibowu was at that time the first Nigerian to be serving in the Supreme Court of Nigeria. He had rich credentials. He was called to the Bar in 1923 at Middle Temple in London. At a time, his father was the secretary of the Egba nation. In fact, if you look at the Nigeria Legal Practitioner’s enrollment list, you will see that Olumuyiwa Jibowu, who was sworn in on August 8, 1923 was lawyer number 69, while Justice Adetokunbo Ademola, who was enrolled on September 10, 1934, was lawyer number 121, and Chief Obafemi Awolowo (1909-1987), who was enrolled on December 24, 1946, was lawyer number 168 in Nigeria.
A petition was written against Justice Jibowu that he made a political statement and therefore was not fit to be Chief Justice.
When I was press secretary to three military governors in Ondo State (now Ekiti and Ondo states) between 1986 and 1991, his spouse, Lady Deborah Jibowu who later became chairperson of one of the government agencies usually came visiting and she told me expected great stories of her husband. Ten months after Justice Adetokunbo Ademola became chief justice, Justice Jibowu died on June 1, 1959. A street in Yaba, Lagos, not far from the WAEC office is named after him.
The expectation was that Chief Theophilus Owolabi Shobowale Benson (1917-2008), the pioneer minister of information in Nigeria, who was lawyer number 190 and enrolled on September 9, 1947, like Chief Victor Babaremilekun Adetokunbo Fani-Kayode (1921-1995), would tell his own side of the story in the saga. He never did till he died on February 13, 2008.
In 1972, Sir Adetokunbo Ademola gave notice of retirement, and General Yakubu Gowon quickly set in motion efforts to pick a candidate to succeed him. He appointed Dr. Taslim Olawale Elias (1914-1991) as the Chief Justice of the Federation.
At the time of the appointment, Dr. Elias was not serving as a Justice of the Supreme Court. He was the first attorney-general and minister of Justice and later dean, Faculty of Law, University of Lagos. He was lawyer number 308 of the federation and enrolled on December 15, 1951. The appointment shocked many. The argument then was not that Elias was not qualified, but that he was not a serving Justice of the Supreme Court, although he was the incumbent attorney-general of the federation.
On July 29 1975, while away at the Organisation of African Unity meeting in Kampala, Uganda, General Murtala Ramat Mohammed (1938-1976) toppled his school mate and senior in Barewa College, General Gowon. One of the first things he did was to fire Justice Elias as the chief justice of the federation. He too did the unthinkable and appointed a non-Nigerian, Justice Arthur Darnley Alexander (1920-1988) as chief justice. Justice Alexander was born in Casteries, St. Lucia in the West Indies, in the Caribbean. He had served as a crown counsel and legal draftsman in Jamaica and as a magistrate in Turks and Caicos Islands. He came to Nigeria in 1957 on the invitation of the premier of the Western Region, Chief Obafemi Awolowo, who had appealed to the Colonial Office in London to help source a legal draftsman. Alexander then served the region in various capacities.
He was legal draftsman of the Western Region, Nigeria, from 1957 to 1969, and was acting director of Public Prosecutions in 1958. In 1960, he was appointed the solicitor-general and permanent secretary of the regional Ministry of Justice; and in 1963, he was made a queen’s counsel. In 1964, he was appointed a judge in the Lagos High Court.
In 1964, the then premier of Mid-Western region, Chief Dennis Chukwudi Osadebe (1911-1994) appointed him to head the Owegbe court tribunal, which was targeted at the deputy premier of the region, Chief Humphrey Omo-Osagie (1896-1977) who was eventually cleared of any wrong doing.
Justice Darnley Alexander was appointed chief justice of the South Eastern State, now the Cross River and Akwa Ibom states. At the time he was appointed as chief justice of the federation, there were more than twelve serving justices of the Supreme Court who were his seniors.
Justice Salihu Modibbo Alfa Belgore had the shortest tenure, so far, as the chief justice of Nigeria since independence. He was the tenth chief justice, and served between July 2006 and January 2007 — for barely six months. His predecessor, Justice Muhammed Lawal Uwais retired on June 12, 2006.
The nearest to him is Justice Dahiru Musderphar, a close ally of General Sanni Abacha, who served between August 21, 2011 and July 16, 2012. Belgore was not to be the chief justice but for a peace meeting initiated by President Olusegun Obasanjo with Justice Uwais, Justice Belgore, Major General Abdullahi Muhammed (rtd.) – the then chief of staff to the president, and the then secretary to the government of the federation, Chief Ufott Ekaette, in May 2006 in the Villa. It was after the meeting that the National Judicial Council finally submitted Justice Belgore’s name via President Obasanjo to the Senate, presided then by Senator Ken Ugwu Nnamani.
The thinking then was, why make Belgore the chief justice when he had only six months to serve? He fought back like a wounded lion with all his contacts insisting that if only for one day, it was his right to be chief justice. That is all I will say on this issue for the moment.
We should not forget also that Justice Belgore is from one of the most powerful ten families in Ilorin, like the Sarakis, Abdul-Razaks, Sulu Gambaris, Barajes, Onikijipas, Oniyangis, Idiagbons, and Kawus, who are regarded as untouchable in that ancient city.
As I said earlier, crisis is not new to the Supreme Court. Notwithstanding, it must be acknowledged too that the National Judicial Council has been implementing necessary reforms within the Judiciary in the last sixteen months. The council should be commended and encouraged.
Teniola, a former Director in the Presidency, wrote from Lagos
