In reality, however, the principal problem that ails Nigeria’s judicial system is that the guardrails and incentives for ethical judicial service have been destroyed by a concert of senior judicial figures, senior lawyers and senior politicians. Reversing this needs a new coalition for public good in the judiciary. Without a re-engineering of the incentive structure, every effort at institutional re-design is bound to collapse. That begins with attention to appointment, preferment, accountability and discipline. Restoring consequences for judicial malfeasance will be key.
Seven years after his emergence as Nigeria’s military Head of State, in the third quarter of 1974, General Yakubu Gowon placed a telephone call to the then Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Taslim Elias. The subject matter of the call, according to Atanda Fatayi Williams, then a Justice of the Supreme Court (and future CJN) himself, with whom the Chief Justice discussed the matter, was a complaint by…