By Chinedu Agu
There are speeches that sound like statesmanship until events begin to cross-examine them. Then, suddenly, the words that once attracted applause begin to look like exhibits tendered against their maker.
Governor Hope Uzodimma’s speech at the swearing-in of Hon. Justice Ijeoma Agugua as Acting Chief Judge of Imo State and Barrister Paul Obinatu as Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice on 26 September 2025 was one such speech. It was solemn, polished, and full of institutional perfume. It spoke of due process, judicial independence, accountability, competence, good governance, and the “last hope of the common man.”
For the reader to properly appreciate the irony of the present moment, it is necessary to reproduce the Governor’s words in full:
“In reaffirming our commitment to the full functionality of every arm of Government, we must draw important lessons from our recent institutional history. The imbroglio that rocked the Judiciary in our State was both unfortunate and instructive.
“Having navigated that turbulent phase with the maturity and diligence required, we have taken decisive and lawful steps to restore the dignity of our Judiciary and reinforce the sacred principles of justice and due process.
“By the recommendation and ratification from the NJC, I performed the swearing-in of Hon. Justice Ijeoma Agugua as the Acting Chief Judge of Imo State, and Barrister Paul Obinatu as the Honourable Commissioner for Justice and Attorney General. Their appointments mark a new chapter in our collective journey to entrench accountability, competence, and judicial independence.
I am confident that both appointees will bring to their respective offices a deep sense of duty, professional excellence, and loyalty to the constitution. We will continue to ensure that no arm of Government lags behind in our shared mission of service delivery, rule of law, and good governance.
“The judiciary must remain the last hope of the common man, and under my administration, it will continue to be given every support it needs to thrive.*
— Hope Uzodimma”
Beautiful. So beautiful, in fact, that if words alone could guarantee judicial independence, Imo State would by now be a constitutional paradise. The Judiciary would be wearing white garments, the Executive would be singing hymns of restraint, and the common man would be dancing at the gate of justice.
Unfortunately, governance is not literature. Public institutions are not strengthened by elegant sentences. The value of a speech lies in the conduct that follows it, and on that score, the Governor’s sermon is now standing trial before the facts.
At the time those lofty words were being delivered about judicial independence and due process, the irony was almost too heavy to carry. I was by that day already cooling my heels at Owerri Prisons under the pen of His Worship Obinna Njemanze, whose ruling remanding me in prison custody the previous day [25 September 2026] over what many considered fair comment about governance in Imo State, did not exactly arrive carrying the banner of judicial independence. So, while the Governor was speaking of the Judiciary as the last hope of the common man, I had just had the rare privilege of experiencing that last hope from the inside of a prison wall. It is one thing to hear politicians praise justice from a podium, it is another thing to listen to the echo of that praise from a prison cell.
As though that was not enough, the Federal High Court, to which His Worship Obinna Njemanze had directed me to take my bail application after refusing me bail, later added its own chapter to the unfolding drama. On 16 October 2025, in what may be remembered as a record ruling, Hon. Justice Joy Chituru Wigwe-Oreh of the Federal High Court, Owerri, denied me bail and introduced what looked like a fresh jurisprudence into our criminal justice system: that bail can not be granted to a defendant when an information has not been filed by the prosecution. Thus, after being sent to prison over fair comment, I was treated to another lesson in judicial independence by a ruling which, with respect, appeared to place the liberty of a citizen at the mercy of the prosecution’s paperwork. The Governor’s beautiful speech had hardly finished settling into public memory before reality began to write footnotes on it in prison ink.
There are jokes that comedians can not write. They are written effortlessly in Imo State.
The same system that had appointed the fourth most senior judge as Acting Chief Judge until NJC’s intervention and had hesitated for months before appointing and swearing in the most senior judge as Acting Chief Judge suddenly found its voice in praise of due process. The same environment in which fair comment could lead a citizen to prison custody was being publicly advertised as a garden of judicial independence. The same political atmosphere that had already made the Judiciary look like a hostage situation was now being decorated with constitutional flowers.
One would have thought that the “unfortunate and instructive” imbroglio in the Judiciary had taught a clear lesson: never again should the leadership of the Imo State Judiciary be made to look like a prize to be arranged by power.
Yet, here we are again. The Imo State Judicial Service Commission [JSC] has reportedly narrowed the race for the substantive office of Chief Judge to two names: Hon. Justice C.A. Ononeze-Madu and Hon. Justice E.O. Agada. In ordinary appearance, it is a shortlist. In practical effect, many reasonable observers see a more troubling design.
The concern is no longer hidden. Hon. Justice E.O. Agada is widely reported to be seriously challenged by frail health. Nobody should mock illness. Only a foolish society laughs at human fragility. Health can fail anyone, and no man owns tomorrow.
But the office of Chief Judge is not a ceremonial stool. It is not an honorary robe. It is not a chair to be occupied by sympathy or nostalgia. It demands physical presence, administrative stamina, judicial leadership, clarity of mind, institutional courage, and daily engagement with the affairs of the Judiciary.
Where one of two shortlisted candidates is said to be seriously constrained by health, the public is entitled to ask whether the process is genuinely competitive or merely dressed up to look so. A race between one active runner and another believed to be medically unable to run is not a race in any honest sense. It is theatre. It creates the impression of choice while quietly reducing the contest to one favoured possibility.
That, precisely, is why the Governor’s speech must now be read side by side with the emerging reality.
He spoke of judicial independence. The shortlist is now being understood by many as a clever route to a preferred judicial outcome.
He spoke of due process. The process now raises questions about selective listening and predetermined exclusion.
He spoke of the Judiciary as the last hope of the common man. The present atmosphere suggests that the last hope may first have to obtain clearance from Government House.
Let no one reduce this debate to a quarrel over personal preference. The issue is not whether Hon. Justice C.A. Ononeze-Madu is unqualified. She is a senior judicial officer and is entitled to be considered. The issue is not whether Hon. Justice E.O. Agada should be insulted on account of health. He should not. The issue is whether the final shortlist, taken as a whole, inspires confidence as a genuine exercise in suitability or looks like a managed process designed to edge out Hon. Justice Ijeoma Agugua.
As I have already stated in my previous work, the constitutional word is “suitable.” Nobody disputes that. The appointment of a substantive Chief Judge is not determined by seniority alone. Nobody who has read section 271 [1] of the Constitution and the relevant provisions of the Third Schedule should pretend otherwise.
But “suitable” is not an empty calabash into which political actors may pour whatever palm wine suits their appetite. Suitability must be rooted in objective considerations. Suitability can not be reduced to the question — “Who will be easiest to manage?”
The most dangerous word in this whole process is not “seniority.” It is “suitability” when placed in the hands of people who may already have a target in mind.
I am aware that the JSC invited comments from the Bar and other stakeholders, and that by doing so, it complied with due process. That argument sounds tidy, but it collapses once one looks beyond the envelope and reads the letter inside.
Calling for comments is not the same thing as honestly considering comments. A ritual of consultation can still be a mask for a predetermined outcome. A commission may invite the public to speak and still decide to hear only the voices that suit its destination.
Information available to me from reliable sources indicates that comments which stated that all four judicial officers originally presented for commentary [Hon. Justice Ijeoma Agugua, Hon. Justice C.A. Ononeze-Madu, Hon. Justice E.O. Agada and Hon. Justice L.C. Azuama] were suitable were not favourably received. I am informed that the Nigerian Bar Association, Owerri Branch, and the Nigerian Bar Association, Mbaise Branch, took the position that all four candidates whose names were sent for comments were suitable. Those comments, I am told, did not serve the appetite of the process.
Why? Because the process, from the emerging pattern, did not appear to be searching for an honest assessment of the four candidates. It appeared to be searching for materials that would help remove one person from the path.
If a stakeholder says, “All four are suitable,” and that position is treated as unhelpful, while comments suggesting that Hon. Justice Agugua is unsuitable are treated with unusual interest, then we are no longer dealing with neutral evaluation. We are looking at a filter. And once a filter is designed to catch only one name, the outcome can not be described as an accident.
Even more curious is the reason reportedly given for rejecting or discountenancing those comments. I am informed that the affected NBA comments were said to have been challenged by a counter-comment or rejoinder.
That explanation opens an even bigger door. How did the writer of the alleged counter-comment gain access to the comments of NBA Owerri and NBA Mbaise? Who gave them those comments? Were the comments of stakeholders meant to be secretly circulated to persons interested in attacking them? Were all comments made available to all persons equally? Was there a formal process for replies and counter-replies? Or did the system quietly leak what it wanted challenged and then use the challenge as excuse to discard inconvenient recommendations?
A process that leaks comments selectively and then relies on the resulting attack to reject them is not due process but ambush wearing the wig of procedure.
Due process is not a game of hide-and-seek. It is not “submit your comment, let us hand it to someone else, and if he attacks it well enough, we will throw yours away.”
This is the point many people deliberately avoid. The quarrel is not that the JSC asked for comments. The quarrel is that the JSC appears to have preferred comments that moved in one direction — the disqualification of Justice Agugua. Once comments declaring all four candidates suitable became inconvenient, the process began to show its true colour.
A man who goes to the river only to fetch muddy water should not pretend he is looking for purity.
It is not sufficient to whisper that there may be records somewhere. Of course, confidential records exist. Of course, the JSC and NJC may have materials not available to members of the public. No serious person demands that every sensitive document should be pasted at Douglas Road.
But official confidentiality must not become a blindfold for the public. Where a process departs from the natural order in a sensitive constitutional appointment, especially against a sitting Acting Chief Judge, the public is entitled to ask questions. The fact that citizens have not seen every file does not mean they should surrender their common sense.
If there are objective reasons against Justice Agugua, let the appropriate institutions act on them with fairness and courage. But where the only visible pattern is a history of delay, an earlier attempt to bypass her, and now a final shortlist that excludes her while retaining a reportedly frail candidate, only the wilfully blind will fail to see why the public is suspicious.
Some people have tried to make heavy weather of courtroom temperament. That is a legitimate area of discussion. A judge should be firm without being oppressive. Courtesy on the Bench is not weakness. Lawyers and litigants deserve dignity. Judicial power must not be mistaken for personal thunder.
However, temperament can not be isolated, enlarged, and used as a machete against one candidate, while other equally important indices are pushed under the carpet. A stern judge may irritate counsel. A strict judge may frighten lazy preparation. A judge who demands mastery of facts and law may not be popular among lawyers who prefer indulgence.
Popularity is not the same thing as suitability. A courtroom favourite is not necessarily a good Chief Judge. A judge may smile generously and still lack courage. A judge may be socially pleasant and administratively weak. A judge may be beloved by counsel and yet too pliable for institutional leadership. The question is broader: integrity, independence, competence, capacity, judgment, health, seniority, courage, discipline, and the ability to protect the Judiciary from political trespass.
The Judiciary can survive a stern Chief Judge. What it may not survive is a convenient one. That is why the Governor’s speech remains central. He said Imo State had taken “decisive and lawful steps to restore the dignity of our Judiciary.” Dignity, however, is not restored by ceremonial oaths. Dignity is restored when the Judiciary is allowed to breathe without feeling the fingers of politics around its neck.
He said the appointments marked “a new chapter” in the journey to entrench accountability, competence, and judicial independence. If the new chapter begins with a process widely suspected to be arranged to favour one candidate, then perhaps the chapter title was wrongly announced.
He said no arm of Government would be allowed to lag behind. The Judiciary does not need to be dragged behind the Executive like a reluctant child on the way to school. It needs respect, funding, non-interference, and constitutional space. Support is not supervision. Assistance is not ownership. Cooperation is not capture.
The Governor also said the Judiciary must remain the last hope of the common man. That phrase has suffered in the mouths of politicians. It is recited so often that one would think the common man has no ears. Yet, when the common man needs that last hope, he often finds the door guarded by delay, intimidation, poverty, fear, and politics, just as in my own situation last year.
If the leadership of the Judiciary is shaped by political convenience, then the common man’s last hope becomes the politician’s first instrument.
There is a strong public perception that the Governor has an interest in who becomes the substantive Chief Judge of Imo State. That perception may be right or wrong. But perceptions in matters of judicial independence are not trivial. Courts survive on confidence. Judicial appointments must not only be clean; they must be seen to be clean.
If the Governor is not involved in this emerging arrangement, the best protection for his name is transparency. Let the process be so credible that even critics will struggle to attack it. Let the JSC show that it did not treat some comments as useful only because they targeted Justice Agugua. Let the NJC interrogate the shortlist with the seriousness demanded by the moment. Let the House of Assembly [our own here regrettably does not inspire confidence] if the matter eventually gets there, remember that confirmation is not supposed to be a political handshake.
But if the Governor’s interest is to install a Chief Judge who will be amenable to political moves in the months ahead, then his speech on judicial independence must be preserved carefully for history. It will become a fine specimen of Nigerian political irony — one hand waving the Constitution in public, the other searching for the Judiciary’s remote control in private.
The Bar must also examine itself. A Bar that goes silent when the leadership of the Judiciary is under a cloud is like a watchman who begins to snore when thieves enter the compound. Lawyers cannot shout “rule of law” only when their clients are paying. The independence of the Judiciary is the oxygen of the legal profession. Once it is polluted, every lawyer breathes the poison.
The reported treatment of the comments of NBA Owerri and NBA Mbaise, and that of other stakeholders thatbwere found unsuitable for purpose, should worry every lawyer in Imo State. If two branches of the NBA out of the available six recommended that all four candidates were suitable and those comments were rejected or discounted because someone was allowed to attack them, then the Bar has a duty to ask how its institutional comments became available to the attacker. Silence in the face of such a development will be interpreted in ways the Bar may not like.
Civil society must not sleep either. The appointment of a Chief Judge is not a family affair of lawyers and judges. It affects the detainee awaiting bail, the widow fighting for inheritance, the trader seeking enforcement of contract, the journalist facing prosecution, the political opponent facing state power, the landowner fighting dispossession, and the ordinary citizen whose only shield against authority is an independent court.
A compromised appointment process today may become a compromised courtroom tomorrow.
The NJC must therefore look beyond the surface. It must ask whether the final shortlist represents a genuine contest or a disguised conclusion. It must ask whether all four initial candidates were assessed by the same standard. It must ask whether stakeholder comments were handled fairly. It must ask why comments recommending all four candidates as suitable were allegedly rejected or discounted. It must ask how any rejoinder writer obtained access to those comments. It must ask whether health and capacity were assessed honestly. It must ask why the sitting Acting Chief Judge, having been entrusted with the office, was removed from the final shortlist without an explanation that inspires institutional confidence.
The JSC also owes the public more than sponsorship and circulation of emotive, law-light, tradition-cloaked, out-of-sync rejoinders. Its duty is not to help any political interest arrive safely at a preferred destination. Its constitutional role is to advise on suitable persons. That role carries honour, but it also carries burden. Where the process looks selective, the Commission must expect scrutiny.
As light shames the burglar hiding in darkness, so does truth disgrace its enemies in a world built on lies.
If the process is clean, let it breathe in the open. If Justice Agugua is truly unsuitable, let the appropriate bodies satisfy themselves by objective and verifiable materials, not by selective hostility. If Justice Agada is fit for the heavy demands of the office despite public concerns over his health, let that fitness withstand honest examination. If Justice Ononeze-Madu is indeed the most suitable, let her emergence come through a process that commands respect, not one that appears to have been arranged for his Lordship’s benefit.
No one should fear scrutiny where nothing is hidden.
The Governor’s speech promised the restoration of dignity. The present process will determine whether that promise was sincere or ceremonial. Imo State has had enough institutional drama. The Judiciary should not be made to look like a prize in the political bazaar. The office of Chief Judge should not be reduced to a chess piece on the Governor’s board.
The “last hope of the common man” must not become the obedient servant of transient power.
For the sake of Imo State, the Bench, the Bar, and the ordinary citizen whose liberty may one day depend on whether a judge is courageous enough to displease power, this matter must not be swept under the carpet.
His Excellency Senator Hope Uzodimma must be reminded of his own words. Judicial independence is not proved by the beauty of a swearing-in speech. It is proved by the discomfort those in power are willing to endure when the Judiciary refuses to behave like an annex of Government House.
Chinedu Agu
Solicitor | Notary Public
Past Secretary, NBA, Owerri | Former Political Detainee [FPD]
ezeomeaku@gmail.com
+2348032568512
21 June 2026
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