Judicial Council summons emergency meeting

The National Judicial Council (NJC) will reportedly hold an emergency session on Tuesday, Oct. 11, over the recent arrest of some judges.

The Department of State Service (DSS) had over the weekend, arrested some judges of the Supreme, Appeal and High courts over allegations of corruption.

According to Punch, the meeting was initially scheduled to deliberate on the most suitable candidate to be appointed as the next Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), but after the controversial DSS raid, the agenda of the meeting was reconsidered.

Pulse recalls that the Federal Judicial Service Commission last week forwarded a list of possible candidates for the Chief Justice position to the NJC for consideration.

It was gathered that, after the DSS action, the outgoing CJN and the Chairman of both the NJC and FJSC, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, directed that the DSS arrests be included on the agenda.

The judges arrested during the 12 hours raid on Friday, October 7, included, Justices Sylvester Ngwuta and John Okoro, both of the Supreme Court, and Justice Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

The home of another judge of the Federal High Court, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba, was also raided but he was not arrested.

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It was learnt that the CJN was embarrassed by the incident as he immediately telephoned the Vice President, Yemi Osinbajo and the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Abubakar Malami.

"The CJN decided that the NJC would take a position on the issue at the emergency meeting of the NJC already scheduled to hold on Tuesday for the consideration of the next CJN," a Punch source said.

The FJSC had last Wednesday nominated the next three most senior Justices of the Supreme Court to the National Judicial Council as the candidates to be considered for the CJN position - with Justice Walter Onnoghen speculated to be the most favoured of the trio.