The Attorney General of the Federation Mohammed Bello Adoke (SAN) has insisted that
there will be no immediate reinstatement of Justice Ayo Salami to his seat as President
of the Court of Appeal. He said a substantive suit barring the federal
government from the reinstatement is pending in court and an attempt by the
federal government to reinstate the judge would amount to subjudice.
Justice Ayo Salami had been suspended earlier for his
brawl with former Chief Justice of the Federation Aloysius Katsina-Alu over a
politically motivated face off. Justice Salami had refused to accept promotion
to the Supreme Court and had gone public with his view that the Chief Justice
was determined to subvert justice on a case before Salami that is the Sokoto
governorship election appeal. Justice Salami has been hailed as a courageous
judge who on two occasions had overturned elections that were fraught with
malpractice in Osun and Ekiti states.
An Abuja based lawyer Amobi Nzelu representing one
Wilfred Okoli, rushed to the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja Friday asking the
court to restrain the president from accepting the recommendations of the NJC,
because the “recommendations were not binding” on the president and that while
the NJC had powers to recommend the removal of the President of the Court of
Appeal, it lacked power to recommend his reinstatement.
What is worrisome is not that a private citizen has gone
to court to challenge Salami’s reinstatement but that the government has been
circulating the motion on notice from such a private citizen to the media as
proof of its incapacitation to do the needful. Circulation of this notice has
taken a new dimension because it now appears as though it were some new holy
commandment passed down from God restraining the attorney general from reading
his copy of the constitution. This is the only country where the political will
to execute justice is driven by the strongest wind and not the rudder of
conviction. Justice Ayo Salami is due to be retired next year and from all
indications, this delay is an attempt to use judicial process to delay his
reinstatement for as long as politically necessary.
Elsewhere, Minister of Petroleum Resources Ms. Diezani
Allison Madueke has broken silence on the ad hoc committee’s report which
indicted her. She accused the House of Representatives of unfair judgment. According
to her, she has yet to breach any presidential directive as touching her
ministry. She believes her actions are subject to an interpretation of the
courts.
The evident attitude of the governing class in this
administration is one of contempt for the governed. There is just no recourse
as to what the electorate thinks of their actions or inactions but what they
consider correct at every turn. Of course there is a clause somewhere that
promises unequal equality to members of the governing class such that the say
of the common man matter not.
The president may have ordered commencement of prosecutions
on indicted persons in the subsidy fraud but the attitude showed before now
suggests that the proclamation was only a smokescreen to quell impending
demonstrations. Another worrisome development is the failure of the Economic
and Financial Crimes Commission to correctly do the job of diligent
prosecution. This failure is seen in many quarters as largely influenced by an
administration that enjoys friendship with enemies of the state.
The transformation agenda of the present administration
is obviously on course. We wait expectantly for that day when the popular will
should always prevail or after all, is this not democracy?
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