WITHOUT doubt, Nigeria’s first lady chief justice, Aloma Mariam Mukhtar had her eyes laser-trimmed on history on Monday July 8, 2013, when she swore in today’s acting chief justice and the second lady in Nigeria’s history to occupy the office, Kudirat Motonmori Kekere-Ekun as a justice of the apex court.
Despite the best efforts of the Buhari administration to dismantle the succession-by-seniority arrangement at the supreme court in the selection of the head of the judiciary as an arm of government and the vigorous campaign its senior officials mounted against the controversial but stability-ensuring turn-by-turn, the convention has endured and seems to be serving its balancing purpose at least for now, though that won’t safeguard for the arrangement throwing up inexperienced CJNs at every turn.
Ceteris paribus, it was easy for Mukhtar to predict another lady CJN about 11 years from when she was bringing Kekere-Ekun onboard, since it has been in modern time, all about age and seniority. The same way it is easy to see the deliberate effort by outgone CJN Kayode Ariwoola to ensure that Mohammed Baba the son of late CJN Idris Legbo Kutigi, is a future CJN, by facilitating an early appointment of the 53-year-old to the apex court, despite the obvious hierarchical harakiri in promoting him over and above his seniors at the Court of Appeal. God sparing his life, Mohammed is going to spend 17 years on the apex bench and be CJN for close to five years, again, ceteris paribus.
It should be stated that Mohammed’s dad, was not the CJN that got Ariwoola appointed to the apex court, to avoid the suspicion of a payback. Kutigi, now late, ruled between 2007 and 2009 and Ariwoola climbed onto the supreme court bench on November 22, 2011 during the reign of equally now-late CJN Dahiru Musdapher. Whatever got Ariwoola into the open-robbery that got Kutigi’s son to the apex bench ahead of his seniors with the obvious scheming of ensuring he is a future CJN, must either be a strong influence or maybe the man of yesterday is just a destiny helper to the man of tomorrow.
Yoruba however will say riro ni teniyan sise ni t’Oluwa (man proposes, God disposes). I wish Me Lord well.
Aloma obviously plotted the CJNship of Kekere-Ekun and it’s an open secret that the older ceiling-breaker is the godmother of the younger history-maker. Infact, behind the new CJN, with her Aloma-like curated aloof visage and frightening demeanor, she is called Aloma 2.0. If you ask me, I would say it is a good company to be, without Aloma’s high-handedness, manifest dictatorial fangs and her obvious deficiencies in being a team player.
Judiciary icon and pride of Ijesaland, Justice Olayinka Ayoola who passed away days back had famously openly remonstrated with Aloma during their days together on the National Judicial Council over her abrasive style as the Council chair. He famously warned she would be a pariah in retirement with the way she was being dismissive of others in the name of fighting judicial corruption. He was almost prophetic despite Aloma’s luminous record as a no-nonsese judge and upright administration. There is a moderation lesson for the incumbent somewhere in-between Aloma, the anti-corruption G.O.A.T and respect for collective humanity.
Interestingly it was Aloma’s much-flayed brash style that paved the way for Kekere-Ekun’s history-making appointment. The vacant South West slot in 2013 wasn’t supposed to go to Lagos, the state Kekere-Ekun is representing. It was Ekiti/Ondo pairing slot and all eyes were on Helen Moronkeji Ogunwumiju, now a justice of the Supreme Court, then of court of appeal, like Kekere-Ekun. The Ondo-town-born jurist is Kekere-Ekun’s senior at the Bar but the Lagosian beat her to the Court of Appeal by about a year. The sustained arrangement of pairing states and rotating vacant slots, favoured her. Ekiti just left the slot in person of Justice Olufunlola Adekeye, who was on the apex court bench between 2009 and 2012. A small history; Adekeye was the first woman to rise to the High Court of Ondo and Ekiti States, and the second woman (and first in Southern Nigeria) to rise to the Supreme Court of Nigeria. For equity sake, vacancies at the superior courts are macro-managed on geo-political zone basis and micro-managed on state-pairing and rotation basis. In the case of the South West, it is Lagos/Ogun, Oyo/Osun and Ondo/Ekiti and following Ekiti Adekeye’s exit, the slot should ordinarily rotate to Ondo and as the most senior Court of Appeal justice from the state, it was given that it was Ogunwumiju’s day in the sun.
If that moment had been for her, she would be the one being coronated as CJN last Friday and not the UK-born Kudirat. A certain Aloma ensured the moment would not be for the Ondo jurist who will now retire as a justice of the court on 23 March 2027.
Here is the story. On one of the days leading to the controversial replacement of Adekeye, as a judiciary reporter in Abuja, I had strolled into the office of a top administrator of the apex court, now a judge in Southern Nigeria and he quickly pulled me aside asking why the media chose to damage the chances of his “sister” (referencing Ogunwumiju). I asked how. He pointed to a supposed positive media report of the day before in which a group from Ondo State, was canvassing Ogunwumiju’s candidature. Aloma correctly decoded it was a political push to help her, reportedly sent for her and allegedly disclosed she would not be appointed because of the supposed political influence backing her. The then-big man said the woman was all emotional, pleading her innocence of complete unawareness of the publication. But Aloma would reportedly not budge. It took Ogunwumiju another seven years to sit on the apex bench and forever denied what should have been her moment. Obviously seeking for a lady jurist to replace Adekeye, Aloma reached for Kekere-Ekun and the rest as they say, is history, though Lagos was already holding a South West slot through Justice Bode Rhodes-Viviour who was appointed to the apex court on 16 September 2010, just two years and 10 months before the undeniable top dog of the geo-zone, snagged the Ondo/Ekiti joint slot.
I know a thing or two about the controversial press statement. Justice Ogunwumiju knew absolutely nothing about it, to the best of my knowledge and I was a bit close to those who authored it. Because the group’s media man is now late, I won’t dig. All I will say is that Egin people of Ondo were trying to help their own, the moment they heard Lagos was prowling. With hindsight and considering how Aloma sidestepped the rest of South Western states for Lagos and settling on today’s new CJN, Kekere-Ekun might have been her choice all along and possibly waiting for Ogunwumiju’s candidacy to slip.
In fairness to the Adamawa-born Aloma, when she doesn’t want you, she doesn’t pretend. On record, she reportedly asked that as chair of the Federal Judicial Service Commission (FJSC), her objection to the substantive appointment of Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa as President of the Court of Appeal be documented. She was convinced the office didn’t deserve Zainab. But then-AGF Bello Adoke, SAN, rallied a successful coup against her stance. Even as CJN and FJSC’s chair, she became a minority voice but the recent shocking Bulkachuwa family confession time has proved her right. Aloma’s choice for PCA, M. Lawal Garba is today’s third most senior justice of the supreme court.
However, what Aloma allegedly “caned” Ogunwumiju for is what Justice Adewale Abiru lavishly “enjoyed” during his controversial jump-over nomination to the apex court with many interest groups from Lagos, that can be correctly classified as political, rising in the defence of his appointment over and above his seniors from the zone, especially Osun. Today, he sits on the apex bench.
But God has a way of directing our paths. He has directed Justice Kekere-Ekun’s, to the judicial throne. May her tenure be a fresh breath.
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