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“Nobody Is Happy” – Buhari’s Attack Upsets The Nigerian Judiciary

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President Muhammadu Buhari’s claim that the ju­diciary is the biggest bar­rier to his administration’s anti-graft is causing ripples in the third arm of govern­ment.

Against this backdrop, the National Judicial Coun­cil (NJC) has identified ex­treme poor funding as one of the biggest stumbling blocks to improving perfor­mance of the judiciary.

At a visit to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia last Sunday, Bu­hari said his main headache in the anti-graft war was the judiciary.

The president, however, pledged to do his best in conjunction with the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Mahmud Moham­med, to improve justice ad­ministration in the country.

But, Chief Judge of Bor­no State and Chairman of the Judicial Information Technology Committee of NJC, Justice Kashim Zan­nah, said the nation’s judi­ciary was the most under­funded globally.

He said this when he ap­peared on Focus Nigeria, a breakfast programme on Africa Independent Televi­sion (AIT).

“Nobody is happy when your institution is seen as non-performing. We break our backs to work and we want to please our nation; we want to please the soci­ety…

“It (justice) is not a cheap thing. You can’t get justice cheap. You go for cheap jus­tice, you get cheap justice. The judiciary of Nigeria, per capita, per case, is prob­ably the most underfunded in the world …

Also reacting to the de­velopment, Mr. Gordy Uche (SAN) said the president was misinformed about the judiciary.

“This (Buhari) is a retired general who just came back to power. What does he know about the judiciary? When did he go to the courts last? He continues to blame the judiciary for things that are not their fault. People will say the courts are de­laying high profile criminal matters; it’s not true. Most of the time, the Economic and Financial Crimes Com­mission (EFCC) is not ready with a complete in­vestigation. All they do is to advertise these high pro­file cases on television, on radio and on the Internet. After they arraign the high profile persons, when you now call them to come and prove their case in court, they won’t come…”

On his part, human rights lawyer, Chief Mike Ozek­home (SAN) insisted that the president’s statements were a pre-emptive strike to cow the judiciary in the trial of corruption cases.

“The judiciary,” he said, “rather than being a stum­bling block, has been the last hope of the common man, the beacon of hope in our nascent democracy. The judiciary, of the three arms of government, is the least corrupt, the least funded, the most intimidated, the most harassed and the most disrespected. It has only judgment; it doesn’t have arms and ammunition to enforce its judgments..”

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