Onnoghen dismisses allegation of judicial gang up against anti-corruption war
Reacting to public outcry on how Judiciary is causing setbacks to the President Muhammadu Buhari-led anti-corruption war in the country, Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, on Tuesday, said that there was no judicial gang-up against it.
Onnoghen, who disclosed this after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari in the Presidential Villa, described the assertion as mere speculations.
The CJN also said that the judiciary was behind the fight with all sense of responsibility.
“If there was steam then it wouldn’t happen without the participation of the judiciary. So, if there is losing of steam you should not only equate it to the judiciary.
“The fight against corruption has lost no steam. It is not correct. Now, you should know one thing: two people will always have a quarrel.
‘’They may be three or four or one hundred. All the parties to that quarrel will always have different stories to tell.
“By the way our system is fashioned and designed and operated, when you go to a court of law, you cannot have a drawn game.
“There must be a winner and there must be a loser. In our system, a loser has the chance of appealing to the highest court eventually.
“So, you cannot say because the government or any agency has lost a case in the high court, you have lost a case and the fight is losing steam,’’ he said.
It would be recalled that the Federal Government had appealed an anti-corruption case against a judge of the Federal High Court in Abuja, Justice Adeniyi Ademola, his wife, Olabowale, and a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Mr. Joe Agi.
They were discharged and acquitted of the 18-count criminal charge filed against them by the trial Judge, Justice Jude Okeke, who held that the prosecution failed to establish a prima facie case against the defendants.
Okeke described the charges as speculative and without an iota of merit.
Newsmen also report that a Federal High Court sitting in Lagos had ordered the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) to unfreeze the account of the wife of former President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience. The account was one of the multiple accounts of Patience the court ordered to be frozen on the ground that the money was suspected to be proceeds of crime.
