FG educates EU, UK, US over Onnoghen

The
Nigerian government has clarified some misconceptions by the US, UK and
the EU over Friday’s suspension of the Chief Justice Walter Onnoghen,
one of which is that he has not been sacked, but suspended.

Walter Onnoghen

Another point is that he is not the man that will conduct the
February and March elections. He is only a final arbiter, in case there
were disputes in the election.

The Federal Government made the clarification Sunday night. It was
the second statement by the government over the concerns expressed by
the Western nations, the latest, in a joint statement.

Government’s clarification, stating the genesis of the case, was
given in a statement by Garba Shehu, the senior special assistant on the
media to President Muhammadu Buhari.

“CJN Onnoghen’s situation is one of his own making and, to a large degree, his own choosing”, Shehu said.

According to Shehu: “Presidency notes with
interest the coordinated statements of the US, UK and EU linking the
suspension of CJN Onnoghen to the conduct of the upcoming elections. We
appreciate the concerns voiced by the three statements and accept that
the authors of the statements believe they were acting in friendship
toward Nigeria with regard to making the statements.

“However, we also note that
friends, when not properly informed or acting in haste, can indeed make
serious mistakes even with the best of intentions. Such is the case
here.

“The statements by the three
seem more driven by unfounded assumptions and to be honest, a certain
condescension to this African democracy. This is unfortunate. But this
gives us an opportunity to clarify some points in the hope that these
three friends reach a deeper understanding of the situation.

“The statements by the US,
UK and EU speak of their respect for constitutional practice and fair
elections.

However, the positions they stake tend to contravene rather
than strengthen these laudable objectives.

CJN Onnoghen’s situation is one of his own making and, to a large degree, his own choosing.

The CJN was brought before
the CCT because of a serious breach of law regarding his assets
declaration.

This is not a mere technicality like innocently placing a
document in a wrong file or mistakenly placing yesterday’s date on a
document.

All credible evidence
indicates the CJN owned and operated several secret bank accounts.
Unexplained large sums of money, exceeding several million dollars have
passed through these accounts. Several thousand dollars are currently
packed in the accounts. Multiple deposits of equal sums of money were
deposited in some of those accounts during the same day. Such rapid and
equal deposits are indicative of a person attempting to evade banking
reporting laws and regulations.

Thus far, CJN Onnoghen has
given no plausible explanation for the funds or for failing to report
the subject accounts in his assets declaration despite having ample time
and opportunity to explain the omission.

Given the amount of money
involved and the CJN’s inability to explain the source of the funds, the
most plausible explanation at this point is also the most unfortunate
explanation. No one did this to CJN Onnoghen. He and he alone is to
blame for this turn of events.

Over the years and with
great frequency, the authors of the three statements have advised and
even chided Nigeria about official corruption. Now we are presented with
the sad and unwanted situation where the CJN is discovered to have a
vast, unexplained amount of money in his pocket.

Because of this he has been
thoroughly discredited. It is untenable that a person in such
compromised circumstances would be allowed to preside over the entire
judicial system of a great nation. That would travesty the nation and
what it stands for.

Had the situation been
reversed and the US, UK or any EU member government found that its chief
judicial official is the recipient of large sums of money of
questionable origin and Nigeria suggested that you retain the person in
that position, you would question Nigeria’s bona fides. You also would
swiftly move to suspend the official pending final determination of the
causes against him.

Not one of your nations
would allow a person enmeshed in legal uncertainty to preside over your
legal systems until the cloud has been cleared from him. That would
incentivize corruption and assault the rule of law.

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Thus, the CJN should have
and could have helped the process in this regard by recusing himself
from the bench until this matter is settled.

Instead, he indefinitely
postponed an NJC meeting for no plausible reason except to avoid any
consideration of this matter by the NJC.

Again, this calls into
question his motives while undermining the normal operations of the
judiciary. The CJN cannot be allowed to use his office to shield
himself from the normal operation of the law as applied to any other
jurist or any other Nigerian for that matter. Such a ruse is effectively
an abuse of office. His position is one of utmost public trust; it is
not a shield to protect him from the fair consequence of his own
actions.

Despite these errors and
omissions by the CJN, let us make this very clear, he has not been
removed from office. Nor has he been permanently replaced. Those who
claim that he has been permanently removed, do so out of imprecision of
thought or mischief.

CJN Onnoghen has been
suspended pending the final determination of the substantive issues in
his matter. The suspension is only temporary. This is only as it should
be. He cannot sit as both defendant and umpire in his own matter. No
legal system allows for such self-interested adjudication; the US, UK
and EU should not now ask us to embrace such an anomaly.

While the three friends
seem to give much credence to those who question the constitutionality
of the suspension, they seem to give less to those who believe what we
did is constitutional and protective of the integrity of the judiciary.
Only the three can answer why they have assumed this bias.

Last, the three make a
curious direct linkage between the CJN suspension and the elections.
However, in Nigerian law there is no such linkage. The CJN does not run
the election. Nor is he the first arbiter of any electoral complaints.
He and the Supreme Court will only get involved as the final arbiter at
the end of the appellate process.

For the authors to link the
CJN to the elections in this way is illogical unless they assume that
election complaints will be filed and will go all the way to the Supreme
Court. Here perhaps they know something about the intentions of certain
political actors to which we are not privy.

Yet, even with that, the US
, UK and EU should want any such matters to be heard by a Supreme Court
led by a CJN without an obvious and outstanding ethical and legal
blemish on his ledger. To have such a person preside over any case,
would call into question the impartiality of any decision rendered and
undermine the rule of law.

This cannot be what these
three friends of Nigeria intended. Thus, they should do a bit more
research on this matter and refrain from being too hastily attracted by
the arguments of those who have partisan agenda at odds with the
government’s positions on most matters and who thus hope to use this
issue as a new arrow in their quiver of partisan contestations.”

NAN