2 Supreme Court justices, 6 CJs, others under probe •NJC meets April 23, 24

A major tsunami seems in the offing in the judiciary as high -profile judicial officers are on the line to bite the dust in the on-going in-house cleansing embarked upon by the leadership of the arm of government.

Nigerian Tribune can reliably reveal that two justices of the Supreme Court are being investigated for alleged abuse of the annual medical allowances.
Each of the current 16 justices of the apex court takes N1.75 million, 10,000 British pounds and 24,000 American dollars (about N8 million) annually for medicals, mainly during their recess in July.

It was learnt that as of last week, vouchers and other documents related to the alleged abuse were being fished out in the account department of the court while the related paper-works were searched for in the administrative department, aimed at solidifying the case against the said justices.

A top source disclosed that the duo might go down in history as the first justices ever of the apex court to be sacked since the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukthar had vowed that any forms of corruption would be met with ultimate punishment.

Nigerian Tribune stirred the hornet’s nest on the alleged abuse of the medical allowance in an exclusive report on the crisis generated by the stoppage of the said abuse by the CJN.

Days after the publication of the story, a crisis meeting was convened at the apex court, with a source privy to it, describing it as “ down-to-earth and revealing”, with the aftermath being an inquiry into who collected what, when and how, regarding the alleged abuse.

It was learnt that Mukthar had resolved to go the whole hog on the matter to send a very strong message to other junior judicial officers that there would be no sacred cow in her anti-corruption crusade.

Checks also showed that a head of an intermediate court, and five Chief Judges of state judicial divisions; one from the North and four from the South have been under probe for what a top source called “alleged junk judgments” with indicting reports said to be ready on the head of the court and the CJ from the North.

The head of the intermediate court reportedly had more than five strong petitions against him regarding judgements considered “deliberately twisted” while other issues of alleged maladministration, alleged shielding of corrupt subordinates and alleged outright fraudulent conducts also came up in the course of investigating him.

A female judge of the court who was recently queried over a controversial ruling reportedly confessed that the controversial judgement was a clear directive from the said head of court.

Apart from carrying a judicial baggage arising from his participation in an unpopular proceedings during the military era, he also openly kicked against Mukthar’s on-going reform.

Petitions against the CJ from the North were also mainly on alleged cash-for-judgement. He is considered a strong power-base in the judiciary though he had made several futile attempts to move from being CJ to justice of the apex court while by-passing the Court of Appeal.

Two major petitions stand out in the case against one of the four CJs from the South. One was a judgement involving the leadership crisis of a political party and the other was about the process of sacking a senior public functionary of the state where the affected CJ presides.

In a particular situation, the said CJ reportedly jettisoned a subsisting interlocutory injunction, halting a quasi-administrative procedure, in taking certain constitutional steps.

Two of the affected CJs are reportedly from the South.

Meanwhile, the National Judicial Council has fixed its meeting for April 23 and 24.

At its last meeting, two indicted judges were shown the way out while another was made to face a probe with the report of the said probe already submitted.