Niger Delta statesman Chief Edwin Clark has said former President Muhammadu Buhari, and former Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), removed former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen to get away with “the mess and mischievous things they wanted to carry out” during the 2019 presidential election.
Clark revealed this in a letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, on Sunday, in which he commended the judgment of the Court of Appeal acquitting Justice Onnoghen of all charges of false declaration of assets, following a settlement agreement with the Federal Government.
He said the suspension of the former CJN by President Buhari was faulty, adding that the constitutional provision that placed the power to appoint and suspend a CJN in the hands of the President, the National Judicial Council, and the National Assembly.
According to the Ijaw leader, President Tinubu should not allow sacred cows in his government, saying the constitution did not provide immunity for life for a former President.
“As for the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, in his own case, ‘a Daniel has come to judgment’. I knew he was not fairly treated; he was oppressed and humiliated by President Muhammadu Buhari and his Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN).
“At this juncture, let me say this: President Tinubu’s government must not allow sacred cows to exist in Nigeria, no matter whose ox is gored. There is no one who is above the law in his own country. A president of a country is just one of the ordinary members in the country, but once elected, enjoys immunity. There is nowhere therefore in the constitution or any legal document where it is stated that immunity is for life.
“Today in Nigeria, we have corrupt Presidents and some of them today are accusing their successors of corruption without looking back at what they themselves stole while in office but no one dares to touch them. Perhaps, it is an irony of fate for the former CJN, Justice Walter Onnoghen, who was one of the Supreme Court Justices whose judgment favored President Muhammadu Buhari in his presidential election case in the Supreme Court in 2011.”
“He (Buhari) allowed him to rise to the post of CJN but he saw that, that was not good enough for him because if Justice Onnoghen was to remain the CJN, the mess and mischievous things they wanted to carry out during the presidential election in 2019, Justice Onnoghen would not accept it and the best thing was to remove him, and this was the secret plan between President Buhari and his Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami.
“The show of shame that took place at the time was so disgraceful, callous, unjust and so barbaric that instead the President of Nigeria, who swore to an oath of office that he would maintain security and welfare of Nigerians, chose to stoop so low in order to humiliate a fellow Nigerian because he wanted to be President of Nigeria at all costs for a second term. It is a shame which Nigeria has just recovered from,” he stated.
