No matter how hard the presidency and aides of President Goodluck Jonathan deny the fact, they are guilty of subterfuge and partisanship in the controversy between the National Judicial Council (NJC) and Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) on one side and the lonely and victimised Justice Ayo Salami, suspended President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), on the other side. In my last piece on this sad and irritating matter I had feared that the NJC would ignore common sense and reasonableness to achieve its predetermined and unlawful goals. I even wondered whether the president, knowing the weight of responsibility on his shoulders, and appreciating the graveness of the office he occupies, would ignore posterity and go ahead to side with the powerful and desperate clique in the NJC. If he went on to do the unthinkable, I concluded, Jonathan would have succeeded in taking a step that would define his presidency for all time and leave a permanent scar on his tenure.
When I penned those words, and in spite of my suspicion that Jonathan had weak knees when it came to his party and its interests, I had held out hope that he would somehow fumble into the right choice, not enthusiastically out of conviction, for that was not in his character, but at least reluctantly out of instinct. My suspicion, it turned out, was entirely misplaced. By announcing an acting president for the Court of Appeal, in line with the recommendation of the NJC acting under the iron fist of Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, the president wittingly gave in to the argument and mischief of the judicial body. And by carefully wording the appointment notice to appear as if he sidestepped both the suspension and retirement of Salami as canvassed by the NJC, the president gave us an unwholesome view of how lightly he esteems his office and with what levity he takes momentous decisions. 
Salami had gone to court fearing the rashness of the NJC would hurt his reputation, but the case was yet to be assigned or heard. If the president had waited for a week or two, knowing full well that the case was in court, would justice to the complainant and the defendant be undermined? There was no chance of that happening. But if the president had waited for a week or two until the case was assigned, would the predetermined objectives of the CJN and the covert wish of the presidency and the ruling party be injured? Absolutely. The decision to take a peremptory action on the controversial suspension of the PCA must, therefore, be understood in those contexts. Forget the subterfuge by the NJC sitting without a quorum, and the presidency acting without a sense of history. Forget also the indignation of the president’s spokesman, Dr Reuben Abati, as he rails against public reaction, a reaction he snorts is partisan. Forget also the sickening fact that a judicial officer junior to Salami sat with seven other jurists from a 24-member body to take a decision over their senior.
What is most surprising is that the NJC under Katsina-Alu and his proxies cannot fathom the degree of injury it has done itself and the judiciary as a whole. Since the outgoing CJN took over, and particularly since he caused the Sokoto governorship petition judgement to be arrested, it was clear he had neither the interest of leaving a good legacy nor of being a patriot. It was sufficient for him to rise to the rank of CJN, a position thrust on him solely by his long stay in the Supreme Court and by his seniority. Had he other qualifications known to the judicious and the deep, those credentials would have recommended him to us as a judicial officer destined for greatness and whom we could not but esteem very highly. As it is, Katsina-Alu preferred to leave office on good commons than on good merit.
The president’s seemingly disingenuous intervention in the Salami/NJC case is still baffling. He argued he was neither suspending nor retiring the PCA, but that he was only acting to fill a lacuna created by the suspension of Salami by the NJC. According to the presidency, Jonathan was satisfied that the Third Schedule of the 1999 constitution gave the NJC the power to exercise disciplinary control over judicial officers of the rank of the PCA. Once the NJC communicated to him that it had sanctioned the PCA, the president considered that he had the obligation to ensure there was no vacuum in the Court of Appeal, even if he theoretically disagreed with the judicial body. He was not fussy about whether the NJC followed due process.
The NJC used to be an awe-inspiring body around whose perfumed corridors lesser judicial officers tiptoed reverentially. Katsina-Alu has virtually demystified and destroyed that awe overnight. The CJN’s detrimental instinct is obviously both a product of his person and his insufficient appreciation of the law beyond its letter. But by far the greater censure goes to the president whose aides and hirelings are now quizzically trying to paint him as neutral in the case. He is most definitely not neutral. The buck stops at his desk; though he has tried unsuccessfully to pass it to both the NJC and Nigerians whom he said were partisan, and to the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) members whom his aides and party said were instigating the protests over the Salami case. This is unexampled rascality.
The ACN is alleged to be supporting and defending Salami, an observation mischievously celebrated by the ruling party’s supporters and their bought media. But it would have been stupid and cowardly of the ACN not to defend the PCA, for the ruling party flagrantly gave everybody the impression it was persecuting Salami over the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections petitions. And is the cause not just? Or is everyone defending Salami ACN? It is in fact Jonathan and the NJC that are politicising the Salami case by sentimentally seeking to drag the ACN into the fray, while completely avoiding or misinterpreting the provisions of the constitution relevant to the case. It is important for the public to understand that by appointing an acting PCA the president simply surrendered to the wish of the NJC. There is no other way to look at his action other than to say he endorsed the suspension of Salami without saying so openly, and that except the PCA gets a reprieve from the courts, he will stay suspended for a long time in accordance with the desire of the NJC and the covert interest of the presidency and the PDP.
It is also important for the public to understand that the Third Schedule of the constitution, which the NJC and the president’s supporters are vigorously celebrating and relying on, cannot be read in isolation of Section 292 of the constitution that spells out how top judicial officers can be removed. Apart from the fact that it is dishonest of the NJC to purport to suspend Salami after all investigations had been carried out, rather than to suspend him before he was investigated, it is egregious subversion of the constitution to misinterpret the constitution at the level of the NJC. As a legal luminary put it, “It is settled that in construing the provisions or section of a statute or indeed the constitution, such provisions or section should not be read in isolation of the other parts of the statute or constitution. In other words, the statute or constitution should be read as a whole in order to determine the intendment of the makers of the statute or constitution. In this context, it is safe to say that the oft-quoted provisions of Paragraph 21(b) of the Third Schedule cannot be read in total disregard to the provisions of Section 292 of the constitution.”
The Third Schedule of the 1999 constitution gives the NJC power to take action on erring judicial officers. It did not spell out how. The how is contained in Section 292. Importantly, notwithstanding the agitations of blackmailers, we must not forget that the NJC said it was suspending Salami for misconduct. But it began the persecution of the PCA by first accusing him of lying on oath. When it discovered it would need court pronouncement to establish perjury against him, the offence became refusal to apologise to the CJN. When that also became sticky, the offence metamorphosed into misconduct, which they defined as resorting to media publicity. It is these shifty excuses and unprincipled actions that Jonathan lent his imprimatur.
The CJN is retiring today. He is leaving after desecrating a judicial body handed over to him in good standing and in one piece. He is leaving after exposing the weak underbelly of the Supreme Court in very unflattering ways. Of course he has nothing to lose personally, for he has accreted little by way of fame and reputation in his years on the bench, and will go back to the anonymity from whence he came. But Jonathan is still in office, and will be for about four years. As he demonstrated in the Ogun State House of Assembly controversy, when he sided with lawless lawmakers to our initial dismay, he seems to have the instinct of siding with lawbreakers when it suits his political goals. Though many of us supported him during the closing years of Umaru Yar’Adua presidency and in the last presidential election, we feared he would lack principles. He has not disappointed us; he has only shown why we must look beyond him for the greatness of our country – as we looked beyond his predecessors who thought leadership was all about the provision of roads and infrastructure.