The Economist in 2008 famously described Nigeria as a democracy by court order. In the pecking order of the courts, the Supreme Court dictates what happens. Any crisis afflicting the apex court in this system sooner or later occasions system-wide contagion.
By Chidi Anselm Odinkalu
In March 2017, columnist, Eric Teniola, began his article tracing the history of appointments to the Nigerian Supreme Court with the following lines: “[c]risis is not new to the Supreme Court in Nigeria. From inception, there has always been one crisis or the other in that court.”
That crisis of appointment has often been accompanied by a crisis of retention and mortality. When Stafford Foster Sutton retired as the last foreign Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), the government appointed an Egba prince, Adetokunbo Ademola, to succeed him on April 1, 1958. Fourteen months later, Olumuyiwa Jibowu, the first Nigerian on the then Federal Supreme Court, whose supercession by Ademola into the office of the CJN was facilitated by a suspiciously well-timed complaint about partisanship (which supposedly made him unfit for the office) died suddenly at 59. Since then, the Supreme Court has lived with triple crises of attrition, retention, and appointments.
Twenty years ago, Nigeria’s Supreme Court was in a very bad shape. On October 3, 2002, Vanguard newspaper in Lagos led with the caption “Severe ailments ravage three Supreme Court Justices.” One of the Justices named in the story was Okay Godfrey Achike, whose judicial trajectory followed the academic route.
Ben Nwabueze, distinguished law professor and currently Nigeria’s senior-most Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), no less, described Achike as “a first-rate academic and a fine teacher”. A distinguished academic career had taken Okay Achike through the faculties of law in the University of Nigeria, the Ahmadu Bello University, and Nnamdi Azikiwe University as well as the universities of Benin, Jos, and Lagos. In May 1986, Okay Achike became a judge of the High Court of Anambra State. Fifteen months later, in September 1987, Achike joined the Court of Appeal Bench.
In November 1998, Okay Achike became the 54th appointment to the Supreme Court bench. He was just under 66 years old and due to retire on December 23, 2002.
However, early in 2002, Justice Achike suffered a stroke forcing him ultimately to take early retirement from the Supreme Court at the age of 69 in August of the same year. He was too ill to even attend his own valedictory session the following month. One year later, in August 2003, he died.
The early retirement of Justice Okay Achike happened at the beginning of a bad season for Nigeria’s Supreme Court. Over the next three years, seven Justices left the Supreme Court. These were Justices Emmanuel Ayoola, Dennis Edozie, Anthony Iguh, Ekundayo Ogundare, Obioma Ogwuegbu, Chukwudinka Pats-Acholonu, and Samson Uwaifo.
Of these, Ekundayo Ogundare died in London in December 2003 from causes associated with colon cancer while Chukwudinka Pats-Acholonu died suddenly on May 14, 2006 of suspected cardio-vascular incident. Two others – Anthony Iguh and Obioma Ogwuegbu – survived hospitalisation for critical illness shortly before retirement. Indeed, Justice Ogwuegbu described his own survival as “a medical miracle.”
In comparison to the three serving Justices who died or were incapacitated over three years between 2003 and 2006, the Supreme Court suffered the death of three of its serving Justices over the 25 years from 1977 to 2002: Onuorah Dan Ibekwe in 1977 at the age of 58; Chukwunweike Idigbe in 1983 at the age of 59; and Augustine Nnamani at 67 in 1990. No Justice of the Supreme Court died in service in the 12 years to 2002 since the untimely passing of Augustine Nnamani.
Before the untimely death of Dan Ibekwe in 1977, the death of a serving Supreme Court Justice was almost unheard of. When he died on June 1, 1959, Olumuyiwa Jibowu was a Justice of the then Federal Supreme Court, which was the equivalent of today’s Court of Appeal. The apex court for the country then was the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council in London. John Idowu Conrad Taylor who died at 56 as the Chief Judge of Lagos in 1973, had served for three years as Justice of the Supreme Court from 1964 until he accepted appointment as the Chief Judge of Lagos State in 1967. Similarly, Buba Ardo, who died at 60 in 1991 as Chief Judge of Gongola State had stepped down from the Supreme Court into that role.