The much advertised arraignment of the Chief Justice of the Federation, CJN, Justice Walter Onnoghen, at the Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, didn’t take place after all on Monday.
Although the CJN was absent at the tribunal sitting in Abuja, 89 lawyers, including 43 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, SAN, appeared for him. The legal team was led by Chief Wole Olanipekan, SAN.
The CCT, at the sitting, ordered that the six-count charge that the Federal Government brought against the CJN should be served on him personally.
Prior to Monday’s CCT session, some prominent lawyers, south-south governors and Chief Edwin Clark, a former Federal Commissioner of Information, had urged Justice Onnoghen not to appear.
While Clark and the governors saw the hounding of the CJN as an affront against the South-South, the lawyers described it as an assault against democracy.
However, the three-man panel of Justices of the tribunal, headed by Justice Danladi Umar, shifted the case to Tuesday, January 22, 2019, to enable the CJN appear before it to enter his plea.
Justice Onnoghen is being charged for alleged refusal to declare his assets; though he has consistently claimed to have forgotten to do so as required by law.
When the case, marked CCT/ABJ/01/19, was called, the tribunal chairman had demanded to know why the CJN was not in court. He also sought to know if the CJN had been served with the charge.
But the leader of the prosecution team, also a former Commissioner of Justice in Kano State, Alhaji Aliyu Umar, informed the court that Justice Onnoghen was served through one of his personal assistants.
“When we went to his house,” Umar who led five other government lawyers told the tribunal, “he directed his personal assistant to collect the charge on his behalf. His personal assistant endorsed it; so, he has been served.”
However, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, who led 89 lawyers, including 46 Senior Advocates of Nigeria, told the tribunal that the CJN had filed a motion dated January 14, 2019, challenging jurisdiction of the tribunal to try him.
“My lord we are not just challenging jurisdiction, we are even challenging the jurisdiction of this tribunal to even sniff that charge,” Olanipekun submitted.
He also challenged the competence of service of the charge, maintaining that under sections 123 and 124 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, ACJA, 2015, criminal charge ought to be personally served on a defendant.
But when the CCT Chairman asked a clerk of the tribunal about the position of things, the clerk confirmed that the charge was received on behalf of the CJN by one Sunday O. Osai, who was identified as his assistant.
The prosecution counsel, however, applied for the Federal Government to be allowed to effect another service of the charge on Justice Onnoghen. He also appealed to the court to direct that the charge be handed to another person apart from Justice Onnoghen.
Consequently, Justice Umar adjourned the matter till next Tuesday.
Apart from the CJN failing to declare his assets as prescribed by law, he was also accused of operating a domiciliary foreign currencies account comprising Dollars Account, Pound Sterling Account and Euro Account respectively .
