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Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
As part of his Golden Jubilee, the University of Calabar is said to have held a special call ceremony on Saturday 22 March 2025, where he delivered honors to all types of people.
The university chancellor is Aminu Ado Bayero, the deposed Emir of Kano. Nyesom Wike, the minister of the territory of the federal capital and the most prolific political cause of Nigeria were also present at that event; Just as the judge Emmanuel Akomaye Agim, a senior justice of the Supreme Court who issued the main decision in the recent sentence of that Court regarding the withholding tax of the federal assignments of the state government of the rivers.
The images of the events of Calabar who put these main actors in the contemporary politics of the Nigerian judiciary in close propinquility between them have become viral.
In response, Festus Akande, director of information and public relations at the Supreme Court, issued a public declaration on Monday 24 March 2025, in which he felt forced to affirm that Emmanuel Agim had attended the call “as an extremely Honourean and a pupil of the Institute, that the Government Council had found worthy of being conferred with a degree in honorary law (doctor in law).
Has been recognized for his significant contributions to the legal profession; Which is a reflection of his commitment to justice, integrity and rule of law, acting as a model for aspiring legal professionals and students. “
The declaration of Mr. Akande also stated that “Emmanuel Agim’s participation was independent and not as an official representative of any Ministry or Government Department, not to mention the accompaniment of any government official from service or retired”, before saying that “any insinuation on the contrary is only inaccurate but Minone judicial independence for our democracy”.
These statements are made in the name of the Supreme Court and in the pursuit of objectives of a high level of independence and judicial democracy.
The Supreme Court is a public institution that embodies the highest judicial authority in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Judicial independence is a high constitutional principle ordered for the protection of the judicial authority as public trust. It is not a selfish shiboleth.
In terms of the establishment of Nigeria, the source of democratic legitimacy lies only in the people.
Leaving the statements of Festus Akande not contested or without an answer, therefore, is to reduce the high authority of the Supreme Court, the service of the distinct men and women who have worked to give him his position historically high in public imagination until recently
This declaration is issued for concern to stem the unfair bleeding of the rarefied authority of the Supreme Court of Nigeria. In this spirit, it is essential to put records, even if never so briefly.
The fact that Festus Akande considered essential to issue the statement itself shows what something was wrong in that event in Calabar. In the event that he needs to remember, Lord Chief Justice Hewart established the standard applicable to judge impartiality and independence in 1923 in 1923 in R. V Sussex Justices, a former part McCarthy, (1923) all 233, with the effect that: “Nothing must be done that also creates a suspicion that there has been an improper interference with the course of justice.
That event in Calabar was full of images to support suspicions of improper interference with the cause of justice.
Rule 2.8 of the Code of Conduct revised for the bailiffs in Nigeria (2016) is very clear: “A judge will avoid developing excessively narrow relationships with frequent disputes – such as government ministers or their officials, municipal officials, ministries public in any court in which the judge is often found, if these relationships could reasonably create a appearance of partiality.”
In Buhari vs. Independent National Electoral Commission & Ors (2008) LPELR-814 (SC) to PP.145-146, judge Niki Tobi of the Supreme Court warned the judges of “maintaining a great distance from policies and politicians”.
Their waters never meet in the same way that the Niger and Benue rivers meet at the confluence near Lokoja. If they meet, the victim will be democracy for the most of the time, and this will be an evil for sovereign Nigeria. “
In his memoirs, faces, cases and places, published in 1983, (p.78), the former head of Nigeria, Aanda Fatayi Williams, said: “In Nigeria, familiarity does not raise contempt. Consequently it is an obligation. Being in some way distant, not only by the members of the executive, but also by the brokers of political power.”
Neither Festus Akande does not, in fact, judge Emmanuel Agim as justice of the Supreme Court can pretend not to be aware of the fact that Nyesom Wike is the most prolific political quarrel in Nigeria. Justifying the public fraternization with him by a justice of the Supreme Court is the license to licensed the accessory of bailiffs for political purposes.
On the last day of February 2025, the Supreme Court issued a sentence in the consolidated appeals in SC/CV/1174a/2024 et al, Rivers State House of Assembly & Anor vs. The Government of Rivers State & 9 Ors.
The case searched for the orders of the Court of, among other things, require the central bank of Nigeria to retain the federal assignments of the government of the State of the rivers until the passage of a budget by a faction of the State Assembly Chamber.
At the time, the question of the right of that faction of the Chamber of the State Assembly to work as such was the subject of litigation before Lowers Courts in FHC/Phc/CS/2024 OKO-Jumbo & 2 Ors vs. Martin Amawhule & Ors (pending the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt from April 2024).
The case that tried to retain the federal allocations of the state of sparrows was not related to this appeal. Driving the sentence of the Supreme Court on February 28, Emmanuel Akomaye Agim framed two issues for the determination that none of whom had nothing to do with the issues in progress before the High Federal Court.
However, without an appeal by that case before, the Court claimed to determine the issues in progress before the High Federal Court on the question of the defection of the 27 members of the River State House of Assembly from the platform on which they were elected (the Democratic Party of the peoples, PDP, to the Congress All Progressives, APC).
Even if the question of the defection of the 27 members of the Chamber of the Shareholders’ Meeting of the spinners did not emerge in the appeal, the Supreme Court raised him on his own and decided shocking a case that was still underway at the High Court.
This course of action has no precedents in the judicial history of Nigeria. It is the first in the history of Nigeria that the Supreme Court will take on a case in progress in the Federal Court.
It is not surprising that the consultant of the 27 legislators promptly applied to the Federal Federal Court of Port Harcourt, asking him to archive the case for the fact that he became an academic on the basis of the fact that the Supreme Court decided the question while he was still at the High Federal Court. The judicial division of Port Harcourt of the Federal Court will issue his sentence on this question on April 20, 2025.
On March 14, 2025, a group of three judges of the Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on appeal n., Ca/Kn/27/m/2025, Alhaji Aliyu Babba Dan Sark Dawaki Babba against the assembly chamber and 7 Ors, granted an “Mandateur Injustice” for the arrest of the same Assembly house and 7 Ors, a “unjust -shaped”. The Manario for the judgment of the same court of Change of Change of 10 January, granted for the judgment for Chano’s judgment, capable of appealing to the same Cagno di Gennagno of 10 January.
The previous sentence of the Court was pronounced by a jury led by judge Gabriel Kolawole, an appeal justice since 22 June 2018. The latter decision arrested that the sentence had been given by a jury led by the judge Okon Abang, a justice of the Court of Appeal from 20 September 2023. The members of the Justice of Justice Eberechi Subette Nyesom (Justice of the Court of Relice, Justice of justice.
In terms of seniority in the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal, the judge Okon Abang is no. 6 out of 10; Justice Nyesom-Wike is n. 9; And judge Oyewumi is the last.
He has no precedents for a panel that this junior is made up for a decision of a much more senior panel than the Court of Appeal. It is equally remarkable that the president of the Court of Appeal has unilaterally moved this case to Abuja da Kano.
The subject of this appeal is a request for fundamental rights by an unbelievated re-maker regarding the feces of the Kano Emrato from which Aminu Ado Bayero was deposed. Kano’s Court of Appeal had denied this statement, believing that the High Federal Court had no jurisdiction on issues essentially of Chieftancy.
Following this decision, Aminu Ado Bayero, who is not a part appointed in the event, notified the security services in Kano of his intention to keep an Eid-El-Fitr Durbar at the end of the sacred month of Ramadhan.
I am reliably informed by sources within the Court of Appeal of the Plans by some people to get an order of the same Court of Appeal Tuesday 25 March 2025 to order the Kano security authorities to guarantee cooperation and protection for the Durbar proposed by Aminu Ado Bayero.
In the meantime, Monday 24 March 2025, the Supreme Court has filed an appeal against the ruling of the Panel of the Court of Appeal led by Okon Abang as an appeal No Sc/CV/279/2025. This should normally preclude the Court of Appeal from a further commitment with the topic, but these are not ordinary times and nobody can say what could happen.
Aminu Ado Bayero, the chancellor who conferred the honorary degree from the Minister of FCT, is trying to claim a curious, incongruous and unlikely benefit of the panel of the Court of Appeal that included the minister’s wife. As I write, the panel has yet to release the text of the reasoning on which it has issued its orders.
Judge Emmanuel Agim is the author of a curious, incongruous and inexplicably unprecedented decision of the Supreme Court in favor of the Satraps of the same minister in the political race in the state of the rivers.
This context makes the perspective of that particular opportunity to Calabar a terrible advertising for a high subversion of the values of judicial independence and democracy, around whose flags Festus Akande tried to wrap his defense defense. Even worse, these facts create a credible perception of the network transaction in judicial orders.
The call of the 50th anniversary of a university is not an emergency event. The parties that met in Calabar had to have noticed that event long before the dates of the sentences or decisions in cases where their interests intermediate.
There was a long time, if they wanted it, to make alternative agreements. Their decision to proceed in the way they did without any regard to the perspective or the possible damage to the position of the judicial institutions does not serve nor judicial independence or democracy. Instead, shows a peculiar brand of arrogance and impunity for the desecration of those high constitutional values.
• Odinkalu is a lawyer and a teacher. It can be reached at chidi.odinkalu@tutfts.edu
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