By Tonnie Iredia
The appointment of Joshua- my childhood friend and classmate-to the position of high court judge several years ago presented an interesting experience that has refused to elude me. On the day the appointment was made, we — all his friends— trooped to his residence in celebration to congratulate him. He was, in fact, the first to be so honoured among us. But, then, although everyone of us looked happy over the development, the environment was rather too serene for a supposedly joyous occasion.
As we took turns to shake hands with the man of the moment, his demeanour and the disposition of his immediate family portrayed an uneasy calm. At the end of the visit, we were able to gather that because of his new appointment, Joshua may no longer find it easy to interact with us. He would no longer be part of our ‘Table Tennis Recreation Group’ in the neighbourhood.
In fact, he would no longer attend any social function and would indeed, no longer eat, drink or laugh outside the confines of his residence. The only person among us who everyone envisaged might still be able to flow with him in his new position was Felix who had become a Roman Catholic Priest.
It was clear to us all that Joshua was into a new but rather strange life. On my part, I inwardly thanked God for not getting into such a job that was capable of translating me into a spirit. Yes, judges in those days were like ghosts; they related with no one, let alone to be quoted as having said anything. But why should that be so?
One of us, Ajayi- then a law student in the adult education scheme tried to explain it all. According to him, it is to ensure the neutrality of the judiciary for all times that judges are admonished to avoid local pressures by not interacting with the larger society. They were not to deal with cases involving their families, relations and friends or any matter in which they themselves could have any interest whatsoever.
In addition, even if there was no proof that a judge could be influenced in a particular case, parties in the case were not to be allowed to even imagine the likelihood of his being biased. Why would a professional group allow such supernatural traits to be the criteria for assessing its members? For me, I knew it would not last long at least in a country like Nigeria where most people in authority speak from both sides of the mouth.
Thanks to Justices Katsina-Alu, Salami and their colleagues in the National Judicial Council,NJC, we now know that Nigerian judges are not ghosts — they live among us; they oppress themselves; they pay lip-service to the rule of law and its due process; they do not abide by the simple principles of natural justice; they do not just tell lies — they do so on oath; they over-interact with the larger society- eating, drinking and laughing at social functions which they often chair and of recent, they are not only seen but loudly heard making it obvious that they are neither better nor worse than the rest of us.
For example, if the story that only eight  of the 23 members of NJC made the decision on Salami, then there is no difference between them and the touts in our legislatures. It will be recalled that only nine legislators of Ogun State House of Assembly met under the watchful eyes of no less than 10 policemen, to remove their speaker and suspend 15 other members. In Plateau State, only eight of 24 legislators forcibly impeached Governor Joshua Dariye. In Oyo State, only 18 of the 32 legislators impeached Governor Rssheed Ladoja. Comparatively, therefore, Salami was not suspended; he was impeached-quorum or no quorum. If so, what is special about judges- are they above board?
This is a question that many people are not likely to answer in the affirmative, especially in election matters. Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Professor  Attahiru Jega, is likely to be one such persons going by his reaction to the  over 150 pre-election cases filed nationwide by aggrieved politicians just before the last set of elections.  Many of the cases were ex-parte orders restraining INEC from accepting and recognising some candidates nominated for elections by their political parties.
Jega, at the time, wrote to the Chief Justice to draw attention to what he called an “emerging trend in the political process where ex-parte orders are granted at the top of a hat by judges.” For the Transition Monitoring Group,TMG, “ NJC suspension in the first instance is very ridiculous, a clear coup d’état against the rule of law, coming at a time that the integrity ratings of the judiciary is going below credible level.” Honestly, from the recent activities of  NJC, there ought to be a limit to how much we admire judges.
To start with, we cannot blame anyone who becomes confused over the term ’judicial precedent’ bearing in mind the inability of NJC to follow the established rule that once a case is before a court, none of the parties involved should take further steps on it.
The hierarchy of courts is another area of concern because it was junior judges that were consecutively constituted to review the decisions of their seniors. Can an administrative panel penalise crime? It appears so in view of the conclusion of  NJC that Salami committed perjury. As it is now, perjury has a new punishment — apology. Accordingly, any false affidavit expert should not get a greater punishment than that except, of course, he, like Salami refuses to apologise.
In that case, he exposes himself to being punished twice as in Salami’s case where the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, was sanctioned twice, first-suspension for refusing to apologise to the Chief Justice and the other- a recommendation for his retirement may be for not apologising to NJC.
We also imagine that many people must be skeptical now about their clamour for an independent body to appoint INEC Chairman. From what  NJC has just taken the nation through, it is hard to suggest that we can find a Nigerian body that can be independent. As for Justices Katsina- Alu and Salami, we cannot prove that they are card-carrying members of any of the political parties but it is easy to know which political party supports who and why.
On the one hand, are those who see nothing wrong with the pace of approval of NJC’s recommendation of Salami’s suspension while on the other hand are those to whom ‘peaceful’ demonstrators are busy handing over their letters of protests for onward delivery to the Federal Government. The pain in all of this is that we, the commoners, can see that we have lost our hitherto acclaimed saviour-the judiciary – a body that is now seen as more partisan than the executive committees of political parties.