On Friday, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Olukayode Ariwoola, will pass the baton to Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun. ADEBISI ONANUGA sought lawyers’ views on the tasks before her
On August 23, Justice Kudirat Motonmori Kekere-Ekun will take over as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN).
She will be receiving the baton from Olukayode Ariwoola, who will retire on August 22.
The National Judicial Council (NJC) had recommended the appointment of Justice Kekere-Ekun, the next most senior justice of the apex court, as the next CJN.
The NJC made the recommendation to President Bola Tinubu at its 106 meeting in Abuja between August 14 and 15.
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The President is expected to forward Justice Kekere-Ekun’s name to the Senate for confirmation.
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After confirmation, she would also become the next chairman of the NJC.
Change of baton
NJC’s spokesman Soji Oye, in a statement in Abuja, last Thursday, said the decision became imperative because Justice Ariwoola “will formally bow out of office as the Chief Justice of Nigeria on Thursday, August 22, 2024” having attained the mandatory 70 years of age for retirement.
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Justice Ariwoola spent 26 months in office, having assumed office on June 27, 2022.
The first female CJN was Justice Aloma Mukhtar, who occupied the exalted office between July 2012 and November 2014, having spent 28 months in office.
The incoming CJN is 66, having been born on May 7, 1958. She would occupy the office for the next four years, subject to confirmation by the Senate.
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Seamless succession
Justice Tanko Muhammad, who was CJN between January 25, 2019, and June 27, 2022, voluntarily resigned on health grounds.
It followed allegations bordering on welfare by his colleagues.
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His predecessor, Justice Walter Onnoghen, who served between March 7, 2017 and January 25, 2019, was accused of failing to declare his assets.
He later resigned his appointment.
Ariwoola faced strident allegations of nepotism, and because he comes from the Southwest, he was the attention of social media trolls who believed he would rule in favour of Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
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But he was able to cleverly navigate the murky waters of Nigerian politics by declining to sit on any of the appeal panels.
Full complement of Supreme Court
One remarkable achievement under him, was when the Supreme Court, on February 26, achieved the full complement of 21 justices on the Bench, following the appointment of 11 justices to the apex bench.
A senior lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), described Justice Ariwoola’s tenure as “a mixture of the good, the bad and the ugly.”
Ozekhome commended the CJN for being able to increase the number of those conferred with the silk rank to about 87 this year, recalling that it was 58 last year.
“My argument has always been that contrary to the fears of many lawyers, it is not a bastardisation or watering down of the quality of the rank of the silk just because many people have been given it,” he said.
Ozekhome noted that the tenure of Ariwoola witnessed the delivery of what he described as “very courageous judgments” and listed them to include the currency case that allows Nigerians to have two swaps of currency, the old and the new, side by side.
He noted that if the Supreme Court did not intervene, what the Central Bank would have done was cripple the entire country and bring it to its knees.
The senior lawyer also gave kudos to Ariwoola over the local government judgment, which ended the state/LG joint accounting system and nullified the appointment of caretaker chairmen.
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