The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, has summoned the Chief Judges of six states – Rivers, Kebbi, Cross River, Anambra, Jigawa and Imo states – over the recent wave of conflicting ex parte orders issued from their courts.
Muhammad who is the Chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC), a statutory body concerned with appointment and disciplining of judges, issued the summons to the affected Chief Judges in Abuja yesterday.
The ex parte orders were issued in various political cases by the judges of the six states in the last two months.
Ahuraka Isah, spokesperson for the CJN, confirmed the summons issued to the Chief Judges.
The chief judges are to appear before the CJN to explain what warranted issuance of conflicting orders by courts of coordinate jurisdiction in their domains. Thereafter, the NJC will begin a probe of the matter.
Also, the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, said it was worried by the spate of contradictory court orders across the country.
Olumide Akpata, president of the NBA, said in a statement yesterday: “The recurring contradictory decisions by our courts, based on apparently indiscriminate grant of orders and counter-orders, in a way, evokes memories of those eerie and unwanted dark days.
“These developments in our courts are antithetical to the actualisation of the just society and independent judiciary that we all aspire to.”
The association blamed its members for yielding themselves to be used as “willing tools by politicians to wantonly abuse the judicial process.”
The NBA condemned “judicial officers of politicians who go round the country shopping for judgments, and who thereby bring the Judiciary to public ridicule,” and warned that it “would no longer stand idly by while Nigeria’s hard-earned democracy is threatened by the venal acts of a few.”
Akpata said the NBA will urgently seek audience with the CJN to address this issue holistically.