Unfair? NJC Drops Name OF YAHAYA BELLO’s Wife From List Of Judges To Be Appointed Into Kogi High Court
SaharaReporters said on January 8 that seven very important lawyers in Nigeria took legal action against the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) and the government of Kogi State. They were upset because Amina Bello, who is the wife of the former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello, was being considered for a job as a judge in the state’s court system. But now, the NJC has decided not to include Amina Bello’s name on the list. of people they want to make judges in the High Court of Kogi State. So, Amina Bello will not become a judge in Kogi State.
In a legal document called the Originating Summons with Suit No: FCT/ABJ/CS/05/2024, Chief Yunus Ustaz Usman and J. S. Okutepa are the people who started the case. They are called the Plaintiffs. Some other people involved in the case are Patrick Okolo, Abdullahi Haruna, Reuben Atabo, Shaibu Aruwa, and Johnson. Usman. They say that the way people were chosen for something broke the rules and was not fair, equal, or based on who deserved it the most, according to the laws and principles of the country.
On October 26, 2023, Sahara Reporters shared news that 17 important lawyers from Kogi State wanted the government to stop choosing new judges for the state’s courts until they followed certain rules. These lawyers are called Senior Advocates of Nigeria, and they are from Kogi State.
They wrote a letter on October 20, 2023, to the Chief Judge and Chairman of Kogi State Judicial Service Commission, Justice Josiah Majebi, asking him to stop the process. The letter was titled “RE: Provisional Short-list Of Candidates Of Ten Judicial Officers Of The High Court Of Justice Shariah Court Of Appeal And Customary Court Of Appeal. In the letter, the Kogi State lawyers explained that choosing judges for important courts must follow certain rules, These rules say that there need to be enough courtrooms and judges’ offices, official cars for the judges, houses for them to live in, and good libraries for them to use. They mentioned Rules 1-5 of the National Judicial Council Revised Guidelines to support their argument.
In a detailed letter signed by Yunus
Ustaz Usman, a respected lawyer representing himself and 16 other Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs), they raised 12 important points about the selection of judges in Kogi State. They noted that the list of proposed candidates didn’t represent all parts of the state fairly. They said that all the people listed for the Customary Court of Appeal were from one area of Kogi State, leaving out qualified candidates from other regions. Specifically, they mentioned that there were no candidates from Kogi East or Kogi West, even though there were qualified people from those areas who were not chosen. This imbalance, they argued, was unfair to those regions and didn’t follow the rules for choosing judges properly. Source:
Scooper
Then, on Thursday, Professor Chidi Odinkalu, a former Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission. (NHRC), shared on his social media account that the Nigerian Judicial Council (NJC) seemed to have removed Amina Yahaya Bello, the wife of former Kogi State governor Yahaya Bello, from the list of nominees for Judges in Kogi State. He called this a victory against what he referred to as the genitalization of the judiciary in Nigeria. Odinkalu also listed the names of the
people the NJC approved for appointment as judges and thanked Yunus Ustaz and Jibrin, who are both Senior Advocates of Nigeria, for their efforts in challenging the process. He described how the approved names included judges for the High Court and the Customary Court of Appeal.
