Following the denting of his integrity by colleagues, 14 Justices of the Supreme Court, Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad has reportedly resigned.
According to Arise TV morning show, Sunrise, the reasons for his resignation have remained sketchy, but a letter was recently leaked where justices of the Supreme Court expressed their concerns over his disbursement of the budgetary allocation of the apex Court, stressing that inspite of the increases, Muhammad had continued not to make their welfare look better.
Some of the issues raised by the justices in the letter include the failure to replace dilapidated vehicles, accommodation problems, poor healthcare services at the Supreme Court clinic, and poor electricity supply.
The justices also lamented rationing of electricity at their offices and homes, lack of internet services in their chambers, lack of mandatory annual foreign training, and outright marginalisation and cheating, including providing some of them with refurbished vehicles rather than ne vehicles paid for.
The justices called Tanko’s attention to an internal memo served by the Chief Registrar, which notified judges that electricity would be supplied to the court between the hours of 8:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. daily, due to the lack of diesel.
Other issues covered the non-signing of amended Court Rules, and non employment of qualified Legal Assistants.
In summary, the protesting Justices called Tanko’s sense of responsibility into question, fearing a potential shutdown of the judiciary due to his style of leadership, which favours his personal family members to the detriment of the Judicial officers.
However, another source said Justice Muhammad has not been feeling too physically well and had opted to resign, although he is yet to do so when the media announced that he has resigned.
All efforts made to obtain clarifications from his Media Aide, Ahuraka Isah, proved abortive as he switched off all his telephone lines and had avoided his office since morning.
Muhammad has served as a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria since 2005 and was appointed the CJN in 2019.
