Judicial corruption: Over 64 judges punished btw 2009 and 2014 — CJN

ABUJA—The Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, yesterday, said that the National Judicial Council, NJC, had between 2009 and 2014, punished over 64 judges that were found to have compromised the standard of justice in the country.

The CJN, who made this disclosure at a seminar that was organised by the anti-corruption commission of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, in Abuja yesterday, said it was regrettable that allegations about corrupt judicial officers and staff now make headline news on a more frequent basis.

He also bemoaned the fact that senior lawyers are also being accused of allowing themselves to be used as conduit pipes for the corruption in the judiciary.

However, the CJN maintained that the level of corruption in the judiciary is very minute when compared with what obtains in other organs of governance.

Justice Mahmud Mohammed

He said: “Although I will not behave like the proverbial ostrich and hide away from the reality that some judges and judicial staff are indeed complicit in corrupt practices, however, I must assert that corruption within the Judiciary is only imbibed by a minute minority”.

Noting that as at 2014, there were a total of 1020 judicial officers serving in the Superior Courts of Record in Nigeria, with 7000 others in the lower courts, the CJN used the fact that only 64 of them were indicted over sundry acts of corruption within a spate of five years to buttress his point.

“Therefore, corruption in the Judiciary having regard to the number of Judges and the number of those accused of corruption, the percentage is very low.

“While the judiciary has been in the spotlight of recent public scrutiny, we continue to take active steps towards sanitizing the Bench. Where petitions are received in respect of judicial officers, they are promptly investigated via internal procedures put in place by the National Judicial Council and where found culpable such Officers are disciplined in accordance with the said established procedures.

The theme of the NBA anti-corruption seminar was “The Fight Against Corruption in Nigeria: The Way Forward”.

In his address, the National President of the NBA, Mr. Augustine Alegeh, SAN, decried that despite the establishment of anti-corruption agencies such as the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission [ICPC] and the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission [EFCC], he said the nation appears to be helpless in its fight against corruption.