The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Dahiru Musdapher yesterday assured Nigerians that the recommendations of the Stakeholders Judicial Reform Committee he set up on the reform of the judiciary would not be left unimplemented.
The CJN who is also? the chairman of the National Judicial Council (NJC) admitted that there was corruption in the judiciary and said? the support staff of the sector, including the lawyers could not be exonerated from the rot.
Musdapher made these declarations yesterday in Ilorin, Kwara State in a paper he presented at the 5th MMA Akanbi Faculty of Law Annual Public Lecture at the University of Ilorin. His lecture was entitled: “Challenges of Judicial Reform in the 21st Century: The Nigerian Experience.”
The number one Judicial officer in the country also for the first time commented on the swearing into office of the Kogi State Governor, Captain Idris Wada by the state’s president of Customary Court of Appeal, declaring that the swearing-in was wrong.
Musdapher said that it was wrong of the Kogi State President of Customary Court of Appeal to swear in Wada as the Governor when the chief judge whom he described as the head of the judiciary of the state was still trying to ascertain the import of the decision of the Supreme Court.
He stated: “In Kogi State, it was widely reported that the President of the Customary Court of Appeal had to swear in a governor when the Chief Judge who was constitutionally charged with the role, had refused to do so, until he had ascertained the true import of the decision of the Supreme Court.