NKANU ONNOGHEN: A MONUMENTAL DISGRACE TO NIGERIAN JUDICIARY.

ICHEOKU says the worst scandal in this mother of all scandals is that some people, including members of the legal profession, both adjudicators and advocators, are defending the absurdity that is this man, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria, who collected bribes and dispensed "injustice" as a result. Query: how could somebody sitting at the topmost  stool in the highest temple of justice, still be expected to dispense justice, when his sense of justice was so impaired by reason of his being compromised with bribes and other inducements. 

Yet this is the fella who sat in judgment over so many disputes, and for such a long time without being caught or was given a pass because those who compromised him were in power and protected him in a quid pro quo arrangement; since many of them got to where they were in life by reason of his partiality in dispensing justice in cases and disputes which they were hitherto involved in. 

If ICHEOKU had his way, this man, Nkanu Onnoghen, the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, will pay dearly for his criminality. He will be stripped bare of every penny to his name, including assets and properties, as they are tainted by corruption and will be summarily condemned for forfeiture as proceeds of corruption. That is the only language which he and many others like him will understand, that more were expected of them who preside over the affairs of others; especially the common men and women who travel through the rigorous paths of courts to seek justice, it being the last bastion of hope of the powerless and down trodden members of the society. 

A man who is an ordinary civil servant, with a predetermined salary and remuneration, but who ended up becoming a billionaire several times over, due to his penchant for corruption. ICHEOKU says such a man does not deserve a happy retirement, but needed to spend the rest of whatever is left of his natural life in penury and behind bars, sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole or pardon; and made to leave the big house only in a pinewood casket, in atonement for  his moral turpitude, depravity and  deprecation. 

The most irritating thing about the disgraced Nduka Onnoghen is that some pinheads are defending him and trying to justify what he did by making a stupid moral equivalence with a certain governor of Kano State, who was captured on video stuffing his dashiki with dollar bills. They also said that the corrupt former Chief Justice of Nigeria was being singled out and pilloried simply because he is from the Southern part of Nigeria. To these numbskulls full of moss, who are incapable of reasoning and rationality, ICHEOKU says how dare you equate the two situations, their effects on Nigeria, closely examined and considered. 

On one hand, a State governor received bribe, an action which only affected his State and for which the State House of Assembly should be the only natural arbiter  exerting whatever punishment they see fit on the governor. On the other hand, a Chief Justice of Nigeria collected bribes and was the chief presiding officer of every dispute and all cases emanating from throughout Nigeria, which ended up at the Supreme Court and which impact affects the entire Nigerian population.

Kaduna State House of Assembly once  impeached and removed their Governor Abdulkadir Balarabe Musa and this is exactly what any rational and reasonable Nigerian should expect of the Kano State House of Assembly in the matter of their Governor Ganduje's bribe taking; purely their State's internal affairs matter, case closed. ICHEOKU says that all politics is local and Kano State should be allowed to decide how they want to proceed with dispensing justice to their corrupt Governor Ganduje if they want; otherwise it is not anybody else in Nigeria's business, period. 

ICHEOKU is not by this giving any pass to the governor, but maintains that what the governor did does not rise to a level requiring a  country-wide scrutiny; nor does it have any national consequence and did not affect anybody who is not from Kano State. Therefore, all those meddlesome interlopers who are not of Kano State should all butt out and stop their righteous indignation over a governor of Kano State that was captured on video, stuffing his pockets with bundles of dollar bills. 

Remember that it was in the same Kano State of old that their once Governor Barkin Zuwo used to keep the State's money in his home, because according to him, he does not trust the banks. He said that since the NPN opposition party at the center controls the banking industry, it might swoop in and seize the State's money and leave him without money with which to run his PRP controlled State. Continuing his warped explanation, Barkin Zuwo, rhetorically queried, what is wrong in a Governor of a State keeping the money of the State in his home, the government house, which incidentally also belongs to the State? 

This incident should fully explain to everyone who is studiously seeking to understand the peculiarity of Kano State and why certain things are differently done in Kano State than in any other State in Nigeria. Thereafter they will stop judging Kano State governors with the same template which they judge other governors or States and learn to peel off from the generally accepted and expected reasonable standard. Kano State is different and they do their own things differently. But now back to the moronic former Chief Justice of Nigeria, whose stupidity is the subject here under review. 

The fact of the matter is that Nigeria Judiciary, both the adjudicators and advocators, is endemically corrupt; the rot is system wide and cuts through the entire strata without much exception. Like the "if you find me ten honest people I will not destroy Gomorrah" biblical rendition of God's encounter with Abraham in Genesis 18:16-33, ICHEOKU makes bold to state that close to 89% of members of the bar and the bench in Nigeria are corrupt. 

The stench of its putridity reeks across the entire bench, from the magisterial and customary courts base level, all the way to the Supreme Court. Members of the bar, including their supposed Senior Advocates of Nigeria are complicit as well and helps with facilitating these briberies, as conduits and go between, between their clients and the adjudicators. It is an open secret, which some of them would rather pretend does not exist; speaking of living a lie. 

Even when they are caught red handed giving these bribes, usually disguised as "gifts", they still have the temerity to insult every body's intelligence by denying it and when the evidence becomes incontrovertible, just try to explain it away as gifts. It could take any form, from the sublime to the absurd; either that the Judge's great grandmother memorial was being held and the Judge needed some financial assistance or that the Judge's farm needed new crops and they helped out with money to purchase more improved variations; or as with this now disgraced Nkanu Onnoghen, that his daughter was getting married and they brought him some monetary wedding presents. 

Then, ask these wig and gown bribe givers when last they helped out their village people or even family members and relatives who similarly needed assistance and for much more pressing needs, and they will wave their filthy, guilty hands of frustration in the air, and with stammered inaudible grunts, like the trapped animals which they are, make excuses. But these slime-balls have no problem funneling millions of dollars and billions of Naira to a corrupt Chief Justice who has no shame nor moral compunction, as they continuously aid and abet the corruption rot which has eaten to waste the fabric of the Nigerian society. 

This former Chief Justice of Nigeria was caught with millions of dollars, millions of Pounds and Euros, billions of Naira and the ownership of over 28 buildings and houses to his name; and on his mere civil service salary and remuneration. He did not deny their ownership, but initially owned them up and later tried to explain how he acquired them.  His continuously changing kaleidoscope of explanations was indeed a male version of the arrant abracadabra which Dame Patience once tried to pull over Nigerians on how she came about the ownership of over $15 million discovered in just one of her bank accounts. 

This corrupt former CJN first said that the money were made from his private practice as a lawyer before he joined the judiciary as a judge. But when confronted with the date variances, which showed that the acquisitions were made long after he quit his non profitable private practice to accept government appointment in the judiciary, he pivoted his explanation. 

His second lame explanation was that the money and assets were acquired through unspent Estacode, which again was debunked, because even if he had saved the entire 100% of every such allowance ever paid to him, they will still not sum up to the amounts and assets under scrutiny. Confronted with the evidence, he once again changed his narration and claimed they were proceeds of his investments in farming and commodities sales. Again, the evidence showed that he has no such farmlands as could have earned such produce as was worth anything near even 1% of the money and assets under review. Caught like a deer in the headlamps, he once again changed his story and claimed that they were dividends from his investments in stock and bonds. 

But what this corrupt former Chief Justice of Nigeria did not know or rather chose to forget, was that records are kept for a reason and these records were once again thrown at his lying face. However, to the mother of all surprises, instead of just owning up that he has been caught with his hands in the cookie jar, he once again bounced off and claimed that they were gifts which he received during his daughter's wedding. ICHEOKU says even a sitting president's daughter's wedding cannot realize such amount of money in question and he was asked to explain how he was able to pull off such a miracle of gifting. 

Exhausted of his arrant explanations, he threw in the towel of resignation in order to spare himself from any further ridicule and also save whatever honor that was still left of him, which ICHEOKU strongly doubts there was any at this point. The disgraced former Chief Justice now enters the annals of record as a very corrupt former Chief Justice of Nigeria who was caught pants down collecting bribes and history will not write him kindly.

ICHEOKU says the most irritating aspect of his scandal is not necessarily that the former Chief Justice of Nigeria collected bribes; but that he did not negotiate a quiet exit through resignation at the onset, when the scandal first broke and disappeared into the oblivion with his loot. Rather, he decided to add insult to injury by grandstanding and stonewalling, thinking that he can by being so stubborn, bullshit his way out of the situation. But unfortunately for him, he forgot that the man at Aso Rock is not easily moved nor swayed; and that he is not knee jerky, especially when it comes to his signature project war on corruption and there was an example to be made of someone so highly placed as the Chief Justice of Nigeria. 

But Nkanu Onneghen is not the problem, he is simply the symptom of the problem of corruption in Nigeria. He was tempted with sucre and he disgracefully fell for it, crashing down from his once Olympian heights perch, into the bottomless abyss of odium. In some societies where honor still matters, including Japan and South Korea, he would have since committed harakiri and spared himself, his colleagues, his family and friends of the shame of what he did. But it is Nigeria, a country which a former British Prime Minister David Cameron said is fantastically corrupt; and which American President Donald John Trump called a shithole country. Now, ask yourself how does any Nigerian begin to mount a defense against such monikers, faced with this yet another disgraceful conduct, of the now disgraced former Chief Justice of Nigeria. 

What a shame and a big besmirch on the judiciary in Nigeria, that once had a Chief Justice named Nkanu Onnoghen, who demanded and received bribes; but is now finally disgraced out of office. Imagine the taint which has made on other judges who will be suspected of taking bribes. What an erosion of the judiciary. In infamy will his name be written in bold letters SAMUEL WALTER NKANU ONNEGHEN and forever be remembered as a very corrupt bad Chief Justice of Nigeria who was disgraced out of office because he was fantastically corrupt. 

Hades will not have enough darkness to cover the shame which he brought to the judiciary in Nigeria, his family and friends; as well as to all those Nigerians who are aspiring for a righteousness Nigeria where things are done according to the books. What a disappointment; what a shame; and you wonder if it was actually the reason President Muhammadu Buhari, based on security report, was reluctant to assent to his elevation, before Vice President Osinbajo stole the thunder from the then convalescing president and pushed Onneghen across the finish line and into the CJN seat. But now, see who is laughing last.