Barely a week after former President Olusegun Obasanjo likened President Muhammadu Buhari’s reign to the dark days of maximum dictator Sani Abacha, presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, said Buhari breached the constitution by suspending the nation’s chief justice, Walter Onnoghen.
Atiku joins a growing list of prominent individuals and groups, both local and international, who have roundly criticised Buhari’s recent moves against the CJN, including the United States and the European Union which warned the president’s actions could undermine next month’s poll.
Nigerians will to go to the poll on February 16 to elect a president and federal legislators for the next four years. Buhari, 76, is seeking a return to the nation’s seat of power.
Even though Buhari’s party, the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), has said the strident opposition to Onnoghen’s suspension by the PDP was a pointer to the opposition’s penchant for corruption and criminality, accusing the Nigerian media of taking sides against Buhari over the Onnoghen matter, condemnations continue to trail the CJN’s suspension.
This is as the meeting of the National Judicial Council (NJC), earlier scheduled to hold at 10 am on Monday to deliberate on the allegations against Onnoghen as well as his suspension, is now expected to hold today.
Meanwhile, the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) on Monday adjourned indefinitely the trial Onnoghen. The tribunal adjourned the proceedings at the resumed sitting on Monday in Abuja, pending the determination of the application filed at the Court of Appeal.
Protests yesterday erupted in many parts of the country over the suspension of Onnoghen, with many of the protesters asking President Buhari to reinstate the CJN.
The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), rising from its NEC meeting, Monday, said it would embark on a two-day warning boycott of courts all over the country, beginning from today, over Onnoghen’s suspension.
The National Association of Nigeria Students (NANS), on its part, protested the CJN’s suspension, which it described as illegal and unconstitutional, urging Buhari to reverse his decision.
In Abeokuta, NANS spokesman, Adeyemi Azeez, accused the Buhari-led administration of embarking “on judicial coup through the suspension of Onnoghen without following the constitutional procedure”.
In Yenagoa, Occupy Nigeria, which is a coalition of Civil Society Organisations in Nigeria, embarked on a protest in the Bayelsa State capital, and gave the President 48 hours to reinstate the suspended CJN. The group threatened to embark on more protests should the president fail to meet its demand, accusing Buhari of being selective in deciding which court order to obey.
In Cross River State, the courts also closed their doors in protest of Onnoghen’s suspension.
In Calabar, the state capital, protesting youths expressed their displeasure over what they described as an assault on the sacred temple of justice.
The group, led by Portrait Peterson, called for the immediate reinstatement of the CJN with all his rights and privileges as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, adding that the rule of law must abide to restore the nation’s lost integrity.
In Enugu, a group under the aegis of Coalition of South East Voters Voice took to the streets to protest the suspension of the CJN, describing it as a midnight order of the court.
In his state of the nation address, Atiku, 72, said the country was yet again passing through a difficult moment and the reaction to the new challenge would determine the fate of the nation’s democracy already imperilled “by this needless crisis engineered by a government that is unwilling to subject its conducts to the requirements of our constitution”.
He said Onnoghen’s “unlawful removal” constitutes “a flagrant breach of our constitution and a frontal assault on our democracy”.
“I need to state that this latest action by General Muhammadu Buhari falls squarely within the pattern of executive lawlessness that has now been firmly turned into statecraft by the APC government,” Atiku said in Abuja, Monday.
“The serial disregard of court orders, and consequent violation of constitutionally guaranteed human rights of our citizens confirm beyond all doubt that General Buhari and his government would rather obey their own whims and operate by separate rules outside the well-established constitutional order and the rule of law. It scarcely requires emphasis that this behaviour is alien to democratic rule and more in line with that of a military dictator,” he said.
Atiku said the issue at stake was not whether the Chief Justice is guilty or not, but whether his removal from office has been done in accordance with the process specified in the constitution.
He alluded to the government’s serial assault on the National Assembly and the judiciary, warning the APC government to “desist from taking actions that may push us further down the slippery slope towards a major constitutional crisis that could derail the electoral process”.
Buhari had on January 25 suspended Justice Onnoghen, from the country’s south-south region, and replaced him with Ibrahim Tanko Mohammed, a Muslim from the country’s northeast, sparking political crisis in Africa’s largest economy barely three weeks to a crucial general election.
With the ensuing crisis, analysts say, Africa’s top oil producer continues to demonstrate its challenges with entrenching democratic norms. The crisis is expected to deepen the tensions between the executive arm of government and the judiciary.
The swiftness with which the Buhari government, notorious for its legendary slowness on key issues of national development, has approached the Onnoghen case in total disregard for the rule of law and constitutionalism, analysts say, smacks of clear desperation to achieve certain outcomes ahead of the February poll.
Coming just before the swearing-in of chairmen and members of Election Petition Tribunal and the hearing of election-related cases, Onnoghen’s suspension leaves room for suspicion of foul play as the results of the February 16 presidential and parliamentary elections may be contested in the Supreme Court, in a country with a history of vote rigging and results being disputed in the courts.
Onnoghen, it would be recalled, was never President Buhari’s favourite choice for the role of CJN. Going back to November 2016, it would be recalled, the president delayed Onnoghen’s appointment for three months under circumstances that led to speculation that he favoured a northern appointee, a suspicion that is yet to be dispensed with.
The move also rekindles old memories of Buhari, a former military head of state who was ousted from office in 1985 on accusations, inter alia, of “intransigent and dictatorial tendencies”.
“Our country is falling apart under the leadership of President Buhari and it is time to stand up for democracy. This act of desperation is geared towards affecting the outcome of the elections,” Atiku said in an earlier reaction.

To fuel this suspicion, the newly appointed Acting Chief Justice Mohammed on Saturday, just a day after his appointment, swiftly inaugurated 250 justices for the elections tribunals. Onnoghen was reportedly set to inaugurate the tribunal before his sudden removal as the country’s CJN.
The Buhari administration has been notorious for its flagrant disregard of the rule of law. Many courts in the land had severally granted bail to Sambo Dasuki, former National Security Adviser, and Sheik Ibrahim El-zakzaky, the Shiite leader, his wife and followers, but the government has ignored the courts and has continued to detain them illegally.
“This administration started on a bang when Department of State Security operatives invaded the homes of some of the country’s most senior judges in 2016. That action, roundly condemned at the time, has not yielded any successful prosecution,” SBM Intelligence said in a report in the wake of Onnoghen’s travails.
Addressing journalists on January 20 in Abeokuta, Ogun State, on the back of Onnoghen’s travails and other issues heating up the polity, Obasanjo said the country was back to the Abacha days.
“Today, another Abacha Era is here. The security institutions are being misused to fight all critics and opponents of Buhari and to derail our fledgling democracy. EFCC, Police and Code of Conduct Tribunal are also being equally misused to deal with those Buhari sees as enemies for criticising him or as those who may not do his bidding in manipulating election results,” Obasanjo said in a statement titled ‘Points for Concern and Action’.
“Today, as in the day of Abacha, Nigerians must rise up and do what they did in the time of Abacha. Churches and mosques prayed. International community stood by us Nigerians. I was a beneficiary and my life was saved. Well-meaning Nigerians took appropriate actions and made sacrifices, some supreme, some less than supreme but God had the final say and He took the ultimate action,” he said.
Abacha, a former military head of state, ran a horrible dictatorship from November 1993 till his sudden demise in June 1998. Under his reign, state institutions were used to fight perceived enemies of the head of state.
CHUKS OLUIGBO
