Nigeria Supreme Court judge ‘cleared’ of corruption charges

The Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on Tuesday discharged a Supreme Court judge, Sylvester Ngwuta, of charges of false declaration of assets preferred against him by the federal government.

Danjuma Umar, chairman of the tribunal who presided over the case, held that the petition brought against Mr Nguta was incompetent.

He said only the National Judicial Council (NJC) reserved the right to discipline a serving judge.

Mr Umar further said the federal government over-reached itself by not waiting for the NJC to first take a decision on the respondent’s alleged misconduct before bringing him to the tribunal.

The Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, alleged that Mr Ngwuta contravened Section 15 of the Code of Conduct Bureau and the Tribunal Act punishable under Section 23 (2) of the Act.

Mr Ngwuta is one of the federal judges whose residences were raided in October 2016 by the State Security Service (SSS) where large sums of money were found in the process.

Mr Ngwuta is also standing trial at the Federal High Court, Abuja on an allegation of money laundering in respect to that raid.