And how else does anyone explain that in her recommendation to the President for Olotu’s retirement, Mukhtar flaunted seven petitions against Olotu but did not mention to the President that five of the so-called petitions collapsed at first sight for lack of substance? She could also have been man enough (woman enough) to say what role she played in inducing the so-called petitions!
By Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan.
Martin Luther King Junior was essentially right when he asserted, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”.
It is common knowledge that a major cause of injustice is human selfishness. In his book, The Republic, Plato dwelt at great length on the fact that people will often commit acts of injustice when they calculate that it is in their interest to do so.
He concludes, “The highest reach of injustice is to be deemed just when you are not”.
Hon. Justice Gladys Olotu has seen it all in the past 15 months. Before her travail started in February 2014, when she was prematurely retired by President Goodluck Jonathan, this federal high court judge had a place on the list of the upright in the Nigerian Judiciary for 34 years.
In appraising the build-up to her travail, Olotu has been quick to recognize the handiwork of a cabal whose grand design is to deliberately shut her out of the system by terminating her appointment 15 years before her retirement date.
Olotu’s crime is that she is in a profession where, contrary to the conventional wisdom, she can be bruised and beaten but she cannot cry out.
Olotu dared the system by approaching the court for redress against her unjust retirement and to clear her name of alleged wrong doing.
Apparently, Olotu has stepped on many big toes, including the retired Chief Justice Aloma Mukhtar-led Nigeria Judicial Council, NJC. Hear Olotu: “Mukhtar used the instrumentality of her offices as Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, and Chairman of Judiciary’s loftiest body to further her personal vendetta against me”.
Olotu has been up in arms against an existing oppressive system in which a powerful grid of retired justices in Nigeria, those she dubbed judicial consultants and judicial Goliath, whose stock in trade is to swing judgments in favor of their clients to the consternation of younger judges who are expendable if they stand in the way of the retired judges.
Olotu includes among the Judicial Consultants, retired Chief Justice Alfa Belgore and Chief Gabriel Igbinedion, a justice of the peace.
She speaks further: “Hon. Justice Belgore tried to influence my decisions in Suit Nos. FHC/UY/CS250/2003: Mrs. Mona Yousseffian v. Ponticelli Nigeria Ltd, Elf Petroleum Nigeria Ltd; and FHC/PH/CS450/2010: Mrs. Mona Yousseffian v. Standard Chartered Bank and others… and I resisted him. This is my real offence”.
Again, Olotu maintains that the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Mohammed Adoke, demands her pound of flesh.
His animosity dates back to the Abuja UN bombing case no. FHC/ABJ/CR/2013: FRN v. Salisu Mohammed and 3 others – a case she threw out for want of diligent prosecution. President Jonathan was said to have queried Adoke and this is what he has been holding against Olotu.
Is it still necessary to remind ourselves that in the judiciary, what people say is often different from what they bring about?
Olotu is unable to phantom why a self-acclaimed judicial reformer, Justice Mukhtar, and President’s chief legal adviser, Adoke, would resort to misinformation, disinformation and sometimes outright deliberate falsehood in her case vis-à-vis their representation to the President. They preach fair hearing and they offer unfair hearing or no hearing at all.
Quite often, like in the Olotu case, they work from the answer to the question. How else does anyone explain that Mukhtar constituted a panel to investigate Olotu but when the first report of the panel did not fit her mold, she rejected the report and apparently had to personally re-write a second report for the panel?
And how else does anyone explain that in her recommendation to the President for Olotu’s retirement, Mukhtar flaunted seven petitions against Olotu but did not mention to the President that five of the so-called petitions collapsed at first sight for lack of substance?
She could also have been man enough (woman enough) to say what role she played in inducing the so-called petitions!
In due season, the location where those petitions were concocted and the real brains behind them shall be known.
For now, suffice it to say that the arrow heads among the so-called petitioners have either withdrawn their petitions or they have claimed that their petitions were not against Olotu but against the tardiness in the judiciary’s registry. All these facts were cleverly hidden from the President.
How does anyone explain that in their haste to kick out Olotu, Mukhtar and her NJC threw due process to the wind by totally usurping the powers of the Federal Judicial Service Commission, FJSC, in utter defiance of the provisions of paragraph 13(b) of the Third Schedule to the 1999 Constitution, which confers on the FJSC, the function of initiating, and carrying through, the process of retiring federal judges?
The barrage of onslaught on Olotu has been coming from all directions. Midway into Mukhtar’s probe, ThisDay, largely parroting Sahara Reporters, went to town with “EFCC Probes Seven Judges for Corruption” where it was alleged that Olotu had corruptly enriched herself to the tune of N2 billion and choice property scattered across the globe.
To Olotu, this was just reminiscent of the normal mudslinging, smear tactics and the dirty politics in the Judiciary.
The libel aspect of this is travelling its separate route with Olotu winning damages of N100 million at the Benin High Court in the first bout. ThisDay is on appeal.
Olotu has been a lone voice, crying in the wilderness. But for us, anything that affects all must be approached by all.
It is possible that in her lone struggle, the attention of the Edo State Government may not have been properly drawn to this important case, which should be of interest to all.
How often do we have a judge that is so strategically positioned in the hierarchy of federal high court judges, with age and brilliance on her side; and with an open possibility of rising to the very apex of her noble profession?
A better ambassador and a more enviable asset, none could be! If we must slaughter the goose that lays the golden egg, it should be with a sense of loss and trepidation.
Olotu is not asking for hand-out. She is asking for justice. She demands due process, which presupposes that if she is found guilty of corrupt enrichment, for instance, she wants to be punished commensurately for her filthy lucre, including being made to spend time at the penitentiary – not by unjustly truncating her chosen career, which would not serve the course of justice, anyway.
Meanwhile, there is intense heat on Olotu to withdraw the case from court. Hear her: Igbinedion promises that “if I obeyed, they, as close friends of the President, would tell him to give me a big and enviable job”.
We believe that accidents still happen but we are not easily swayed into believing that it is by accident that the numerous relevant people we spoke to in the course of this write-up were unanimous on the fact that Olotu does not have itchy fingers but that she is a fine officer who may have been caught in the web of a carefully orchestrated witch-hunt.
Shall we return to Justice Ayo Salami – the ex-chief judge of the appeal court who spent the last three years of his service waiting for Jonathan to make up his mind on the NJC recommendations?
By extrapolation, the system would have one of two ways to go – either keep Olotu waiting for the rest of her 180 months of service or give her justice!
Hon. Josef Omorotionmwan is a public affairs analyst and Chairman, Board of Directors, Edo Broadcasting Service. He can be reached at: joligien@yahoo.com
