…the Court of Appeal granted the JSC in Abia State permission to proceed to completion with a fresh round of judicial hires for the 10 vacancies in respect of which it has received the sanction of the NJC. Hopefully, the JSC will learn from the previous experience and undertake the process with transparent standards that alone can eschew a repeat of the scandal of corruption which destroyed the previous processes.
For nearly five years, Abia State has been the site of a bewildering contest over the crisis of corruption that now bedevils Nigeria’s judicial appointment process. Essentially, the appointment of judges in Nigeria has become something akin to a life-and-death contest, not for or on behalf of those seeking to get justice from the courts, but for people who see judicial appointments as a meal-ticket for life or as leverage in the dark arts of Nigeria’s rentier theatre.
Those who control the process now seem very much to use it only to benefit their families and networks, while those on the outside of this circle feel entitled to the good life that they believe judges now seem to get. The contest between these two camps is increasingly embittered and publicly so. In Abia State, this contest has been raging for nearly five years. In the past fortnight, the Court of Appeal has weighed in.
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The facts are both simple and complicated.
With consent of the National Judicial Council (NJC) in 2021, the Judicial Service Commission (JSC) of Abia State initiated a process leading to the appointment of new judges. As required by the constitution, the JSC was to conduct initial sifting of the applicants with a view to presenting a long-list to the NJC, which was to undertake final interviews and selection in Abuja.
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Before the completion of the process at the state level, however, advocacy group, Access to Justice, lodged a petition with evidence showing that it “was marred by corruption”. Indeed, “a Chief Magistrate slumped and died over reports that her name was not included in the final list of candidates submitted to the NJC after she had borrowed funds to pay bribes for that purpose.” In response, the JSC was forced to abort the 2021 judicial recruitment process in Abia State.
The following year, in 2022, the Commission re-opened the process and once again invited interested persons to apply for judicial vacancies in the High Court of Abia State. This time, the Abia State JSC concluded the process at the state level and forwarded names to the NJC for the final screening. The State Security Service screened the candidates and, on 17 October 2022, the NJC reportedly interviewed them.
Thereafter, however, some persons who had applied in the cancelled 2021 process initiated legal proceedings effectively asserting a right of first refusal to the judicial vacancies that were the subject of the 2022 recruitment. Access to Justice also intervened, alleging that the list of candidates sent to the NJC “included person(s), who have falsified their ages, as well as those implicated in financial malpractices during the time they held certain positions.” The group also claimed that during the selection exercise “no tests or examinations were conducted for the candidates before they were shortlisted.”
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The NJC never completed the process.
Very importantly, the court held that where a process of judicial recruitment is tainted by “corruption and impropriety,” such as in this case, that would warrant a cancellation of the process and the “commencement of a fresh exercise.” The court, therefore, granted the state government permission to proceed with the fresh judicial recruitment.
By May 2023, when a new administration came into office in Abia State, the burden of work created by the deepening crisis of judicial vacancies in the state was intolerable. To address this, the Abia State JSC returned to the NJC to obtain fresh authorisation for the recruitment of 10 new judges but this triggered a fresh avalanche of litigation.
In January 2024, the Attorney-General of Abia State initiated proceedings before the NICN asking the court to decide whether the state government could proceed with a fresh round of judicial recruitment. Joined in the suit were two aggrieved candidates from the previous processes, Eusebius Agwulonu and Ijeoma Oluchi, as well as the State JSC and the NJC.
In its judgment, the NICN established that under Nigeria’s constitution, the Federal High Court did not have powers to decide upon employment matters of this sort. It also upheld the constitutional duty of the relevant institutions of the Government of Abia State and the NJC to conduct fresh judicial recruitment in the 2024 process.
Very importantly, the court held that where a process of judicial recruitment is tainted by “corruption and impropriety,” such as in this case, that would warrant a cancellation of the process and the “commencement of a fresh exercise.” The court, therefore, granted the state government permission to proceed with the fresh judicial recruitment.
Separately, however, Uzoamaka Ikonne and Victoria Nwokeukwu, two ostensibly aggrieved candidates from the inconclusive round of judicial hires in 2022, had equally approached the Federal High Court to restrain the state government from recruiting any more judges until the completion of the stalled 2022 process. Nine months after the decision of the NICN, in April 2025, the Federal High Court issued an order suspending the process pending the determination of the case.
From the judgment of the NICN, Eusebius Agwulonu and Ijeoma Oluchi eventually sought permission to proceed to the Court of Appeal. On 4 February, the Court of Appeal ruled denying their application for permission to appeal. In reaching its decision, the Court of Appeal upheld the duty of the State to cancel a process of judicial recruitment tainted “with any form of corruption or illegalities in any procedure.”
It is a thing of utmost regret that judicial appointments in Nigeria these days are now beset with the kinds of allegations that have brought the tortured tale of frustration, which has cost Abia State the better part of five years to resolve. This is not to mention the untold hardship this situation must have inflicted on serving judges, who have had to deal with an unmanageable toll of judicial dockets caused by rising judicial attrition.
The court took a very dim view of the conduct of the aggrieved candidates from previous processes of judicial recruitment in Abia State and accused them of wilfully and deliberately seeking to “stall any…. future judicial appointment exercise, thereby holding the process ad infinitum in perpetual abeyance without lawful justification.” Unlike the NICN, which did not award any costs, the Court of Appeal awarded costs of three million naira against the candidates, after making the quite weighty finding that they had “lied on oath” in their filings, effectively killing any aspirations they had for judicial office.
It is a thing of utmost regret that judicial appointments in Nigeria these days are now beset with the kinds of allegations that have brought the tortured tale of frustration, which has cost Abia State the better part of five years to resolve. This is not to mention the untold hardship this situation must have inflicted on serving judges, who have had to deal with an unmanageable toll of judicial dockets caused by rising judicial attrition.
Those who have responsibility for judicial recruitment would do well to pay heed. It is the only way to ensure that judicial appointments are saved from the mire of corruption into which they have fallen. It will also preclude a test for an observation contained in the ruling of the Court of Appeal in this case. With neither provocation nor foundation in its judgment, the Court of Appeal claimed that “employment or appointment of judicial officers are (sic) not justiciable.” The court felt no need to follow up this observation with any explanation, justification or authority.
With this sentence, the court claims that it is not possible to undertake lawful proceedings in court to challenge judicial appointments. It said this in a decision in which it also affirmed a duty on the part of relevant authorities to set aside any process of judicial appointment that is tainted with corruption.
But it is not at all difficult to see how a corrupt or corrupted process of judicial appointment can claim impunity under this observation to afflict the judicial system with crooked judges from a crooked process. Unquestionably, we have not heard the last of this issue.
In the interim, the Court of Appeal granted the JSC in Abia State permission to proceed to completion with a fresh round of judicial hires for the 10 vacancies in respect of which it has received the sanction of the NJC. Hopefully, the JSC will learn from the previous experience and undertake the process with transparent standards that alone can eschew a repeat of the scandal of corruption which destroyed the previous processes.
Chidi Anselm Odinkalu, a lawyer, teaches at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy and can be reached through [email protected].
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