FLASH BACK: Katsina-Alu Vs Salami: It’s Time For Judicial Cleansing – Gadzama SAN

BY IKECHUKWU NNOCHIRI

…canvasses sanction for any of them found culpable

Appalled that the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloysius
Katsina-Alu and the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa
Ayo Salami, allowed their personal differences to attract scorn for
the entire judicial system in the country, a member of Nigerian
Inner Bar and Senior Advocate, Chief Joe-Kyari Gadzama, SAN,
weekend, urged the National Judicial Council, NJC, to impose stiff
sanction on any of them found guilty of official misconduct,
stressing that it was the only way to restore confidence of
Nigerians on the sanctity of the judiciary.

Chief Gadzama, who stated this while addressing newsmen,
maintained that the ongoing feud between the two judicial eggheads,
had provided an ample opportunity for the third arm of government
in the country to purge itself of corruption, even as he commended
the duo for allowing themselves to be probed.

He, however, dismissed action of the judicial panel set-up by
the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, to probe the alleged misconduct
against the CJN and the PCA, as a wild goose chase, insisting that
the decision of the legal body was inconsequential since it was
bereft of the locus to sanction erring judicial officers in the
country, a function, he said, could only be exercised by the
NJC.

It would be recalled the NBA had on February 22, inaugurated a
high-powered delegation, comprising 10 Senior Advocate of Nigeria,
to investigate the plethora of allegations of corruption trailing
the ongoing face-off between the CJN and PCA.

Gadzama faulted the action, contending that the NBA could only
play an advisory role in the matter, just as he had equally rooted
for a domestication of the Singaporean judicial model in Nigeria
which, he said, postulates that whoever raised any form of
allegation against anyone must be compelled by force of law to
prove same or go to jail.

According to him, “it is a pity that this kind of thing is
happening in the judiciary, we of the learned profession are not
happy about it, but philosophically speaking, both Justice
Katsina-Alu and Justice Salami are both human and they have their
short falls.

“Despite the negative publicity this saga has attracted to the
profession, I believe that it has also opened a golden opportunity
for the judiciary to re-assert its authority and confirm to the
world that it is ready to resolve its own problems and am happy
that the CJN has allowed himself to be probed.

Culled from vanguardngr