In the on-going major swoop on the rotten eggs in the Nigeria judiciary, 15 judges have been pencilled down for arrest while seven are now in the State Security Service coop awaiting arraignment.
The weekend raid caught seven justices, including JInyang Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court; Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja; Kabir Auta (retired) of the Kano High Court; Muazu Pindiga of the Gombe High Court, Mohammed Tsamiya of the Court of Appeal in Ilorin, and the Chief Judge of Enugu State, I. A. Umezulike (retired).
Although the identity of the eight others being investigated is not yet clear, at least one of them is a member of the Supreme Court, a source told Premium Times.
Apart from the judges, at least three members of the registry staff of relevant courts have also been invited for questioning by the SSS and have made “relevant statements,” the source said.
In a statement released on the weekend, the SSS said it also recovered various sums of money from those arrested including over N93 million in cash as well as over $530,000 in cash.
“The judges may be released even this evening or tomorrow, once they finish with their statements which we are allowing them write at their own pace,” the source said.
In some of its explanation, the SSS claimed the National Judicial Commission was aware of the operation.