The National Judicial Council (NJC) has recommended the appointment of eleven justices of the Court of Appeal for elevation to the Supreme Court.
Prominent among the justices for the apex court is Justice Haruna Tsammani who headed the three-man election petition tribunal that heard the legal challenge to the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu in the last general election in Nigeria.
LEADERSHIP reports that the Supreme Court had been depleted to far below its constitutionally guaranteed 21 justices due to the death and retirement of its members over the years.
The director of information of the council, Barrister Soji Oye, in a statement last night said the NJC also recommended the appointment of one justice of the Court of Appeal, six heads of courts and 26 other judicial officers.
He said the NJC, at its 104 meeting of December 6, 2023, considered the list of candidates presented by its interview committee and, at the end of deliberations, recommended eleven justices for elevation.
The successful justices include: Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, Justice Jummai Hannatu Sankey, Justice Stephen Jonah Adah. Justice Chidiebere Nwaoma Uwa, Justice Chioma Egondu Nwosu-Iheme, Justice Moore Aseimo A. Adumein and Justice Obande Festus Ogbuinya.
Others are Justice Habeeb Adewale O. Abiru, Justice Jamilu Yammama Tukur, Justice Abubakar Sadiq Umar and Justice Mohammed Baba Idris.
The statement reads in part: “All recommended candidates to the Supreme Court Bench would be sworn in after the approval of their recommendation by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the subsequent confirmation of their appointment by the Senate.
”The various heads of court recommended would also be sworn in upon the approval of their appointment by their various state governors and subsequent confirmation of the same by their respective State Houses of Assembly.”
Profiles of Successful Justices:
Justice Nwaoma Uwa (Abia State) – Priority
Justice Nwaoma Uwa was, before his elevation to the Court of Appeal, a judge of the high court of Abia State. Justice Uwa, who hails from Abia State, was born on October 26, 1958, appointed a judge in Abia State in 1998 and elevated to the Court of Appeal in 2006. He has delivered some landmark judgements in his career as a judge.
He had his education in Lagos, Abia, Kenya, and the United Kingdom.
In 2021 at the Lagos Division of the Court of Appeal, he dismissed an appeal filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against an order directing the commission to unfreeze the frozen account of Chief Mike Ozhekome (SAN).
In the judgement delivered alongside Justices Tunde O. Awotoye and James Gambo Abundaga, Justice Uwa held that the appeal lacked merit.
Also, at the Court of Appeal in Yola, Adamawa State, he affirmed the death sentence passed by a lower court on three young men for killing Pastor Hammanjulde Dadon.
He also dismissed the appeal seeking to upturn the judgement of the lower court.
Justice Obande Ogbuinya (Ebonyi State) – Priority
Justice Ogbuinya gave a dissenting judgement in the appeal challenging the decision of the Kogi State Governorship Election Tribunal, that Governor Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress did not participate in all the processes of the election.
Justice Ogbuinya, who wrote a minority judgement said the declaration of Bello as the duly elected governor of Kogi State by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was in breach of section 141 of the Electoral Act 2010. Based on this, the learned justice voided the declaration.
Justice Ogbuinya hails from Ebonyi State and was born in 1965. He was appointed a judge in 2002 and got his elevation to the Court of Appeal in 2010. He had his education in both Anambra and Lagos states.
Justice Chioma Nwosu-lheme (Imo State) – Reserve
One incident Justice Nwosu-Iheme will not forget in a hurry was her abduction in Benin City in 2019 but he later regained freedom after about 14 days in captivity. She narrated how six “uniformed policemen”, who parked their Hilux vehicle on a bad stretch of a road in Benin City, abducted her and killed her police orderly, according to a report in The Source Magazine. Justice Chioma Nwosu-Iheme was abducted on October 30, 2019 at about 11.30am in Benin City. Her security detail, a police inspector, was killed in the incident.
Justice Nwosu-Iheme became a judge of the appeal court in 2008 but was first appointed a judge in 1995. He studied in Enugu, Imo, Edo and Lagos states.
South South
Justice Moore Adumein (Bayelsa State) – Priority
Justice Adumein hails from Bayelsa State and was called to the Nigeria Bar in 1984. He went further to enrol in University of Hong Kong in 2004 for Post Graduate Certificate in Corruption Studies. He was born in 1964 and was first appointed a high court judge in 2001 before his elevation to the Court of Appeal nine years later.
South West
Justice Adewale Abiru (Lagos State) – Priority
Justice Abiru has always identified corruption as the bane of under development in the country.
In December 2021, he said the country had a dysfunctional public service system that had been bastardised by the ills of favouritism, partisanship, greed, corruption, tribalism, nepotism and other primordial considerations. While speaking as the keynote speaker at the 4th edition of the Gani Fawehinmi Impact and Integrity Awards organised by Human and Environmental Development Agenda (HEDA) Resources Centre with the support of MacArthur Foundation, Justice Abiru said the public service was inefficient and beset with massive capacity collapse, which is brought by its being populated largely by unqualified and incompetent staff.”
Justice Abiru, a former judge of Lagos State High Court, became a justice of the Court of Appeal in 2012. He was born in 1964.
North Central
Hon Jummai Sankey (Plateau State) – Priority
Justice Juammai Sankey is another very senior justice of the court that may gain elevation to the Supreme Court. She hails from Jos, Plateau State.
Justice Sankey attended the Nigerian Law School, Victoria Island, Lagos State from 1979 to 1980. She was appointed as a judge of Plateau State High Court in 1993.
Justice Stephen Adah (Kogi State) – Priority
Justice Stephen Adah, who is the presiding Justice of the Asaba Division of the Court of Appeal, was born on June 13, 1957. He hails from Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State.
Adah obtained his LLB degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, in 1981. He attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, for his BL in 1982.
He was appointed a judge of the Federal High Court on November 12, 1998, and later elevated to the Court of Appeal on November 5, 2012. He served as a member of the three-man panel that granted Obi and Atiku’s motions to serve Tinubu their petitions by substituted means.
Adah has delivered verdicts on several cases and one of his landmark decisions was in the appeal filed by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in 2020 against a trial court’s decision which partially upheld the no-case submission filed by former President Goodluck Jonathan’s cousin, Robert Azibaola.
He led the panel that affirmed Ifeanyi Ubah as a senator after his sack over alleged certificate forgery. He also led the panel that affirmed Valentine Ozigbo as the PDP governorship candidate for the Anambra State Governorship election. He is ranked 22nd on the seniority list of the Court of Appeal.
Justice Baba Idris (Niger State) – Priority
Justice Idris is the youngest among the newly recommended justices to the apex court. He was born on September 25, 1970 in Lavun, Niger State and was called to bar in 1993. He became a judge of the Federal High Court in 2008 and rose to become a justice of the appeal court in 2018.
North East
Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani (Bauchi State) – Priority
Justice Haruna Tsammani was born on November 23, 1959. He hails from Tafawa Balewa LGA of Bauchi State.
The judge obtained his LLB degree from Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1982. He attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, in 1983, and started as a high court judge in Bauchi State on September 17, 1998. Justice Tsammani has presided over various election and financial matters as a judge. He also presided over the VAT case between the Rivers State Government and the federal government.
He was later elevated to the Court of Appeal on July 16, 2010 and is number 11 on the seniority list of the court. He chaired that Presidential Elecetion Petition Court that heard the petitions filed against the election of President Bola Tinubu by former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Mr Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP.
North West
Hon Justice Abubakar Sadiq Umar (Kebbi State) – Priority
Justice Umar became a judge of the high court of the federal capital territory in 2003. He had his education in London, South Africa, Kaduna and Sokoto states. He got elevated to the Appeal Court in 2018.
