In a compelling address at the 4th C.O. Anah SAN Memorial Colloquium, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, an outspoken legal scholar and Chair of the Board of Directors at the International Refugee Rights Initiative (IRRI), eloquently defended the value of critical discourse regarding Nigeria’s judiciary. He observed that those who voice critiques are not detractors but citizens deeply invested in the institution’s welfare. “Anyone who cared enough to criticise the judiciary is concerned about its state of affairs,” he remarked, underscoring the necessity of constructive scrutiny.
Odinkalu cautioned that a far graver peril looms when citizens cease to engage with the judiciary altogether, choosing indifference over dialogue. “The tendency to regard as adversaries or enemies (I have got tired of counting death threats over this matter) those who offer critical feedback on the judiciary in Nigeria is self-defeating,” he stated. With resolute conviction, he added, “Citizens owe the judges and the courts a duty of candour; for there is something more damaging and more adversarial than being critical of the judiciary in Nigeria; it is ignoring it entirely. May that day never come.”
Reflecting on the judiciary’s recent history, the former Chair of the National Human Rights Commission highlighted a troubling erosion of its integrity, which he deemed essential to ensuring fair trials. “In Nigeria, the integrity of the judicial system, which underpins the guarantee of fair trial, is no longer a given,” he asserted. He pointed to the tumultuous tenures of recent Chief Justices, noting, “Of the six Chief Justices of Nigeria since 2011 preceding the current incumbent, only two – Aloma Mukhtar and Mahmud Mohammed – served out their tenures without controversy.” He further lamented that “of the last three CJNs preceding the current one, two were effectively fired in circumstances that tarnished the judiciary institutionally, and the penultimate scandalized the judiciary with a compulsive disposition towards hawking judicial appointments in a bazaar of undisguised insider-dealing that usually was accompanied by a whiff of political, filial, or genital relations.”
The full text of Professor Odinkalu’s incisive paper is available below.
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