Not All Wrong Judgments are Products of Graft, Says Retired S’Court Justice

*Asks NBA to protect judiciary 

*Legal icons honour late Niki Tobi Sunday Aborisade in Abuja

A retired justice of the Supreme Court, Francis Tabail, yesterday, tasked the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA) to correct the impressions on wrong judgments, saying, not all wrong judgments were products of corruption.

The retired silk stated this at the late Hon. Justice Niki Tobi Biennial Symposium in Abuja

He was the dean of the Faculty of Law and also, deputy vice-chancellor, University of Maiduguri, before he was appointed to the Supreme Court in 2002.
Niki Tobi was an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria before he died in June 19, 2016.

Tabail while speaking on the occasion said the judicial officers at the bench were not capable of defending their judgments, hence the NBA should rise to the occasion of enlightening Nigerians in order to save the nation’s judiciary.

He cautioned Nigerians to draw a distinction between a judgement that is wrong and the one that has been influenced by corruption.

“The trend in Nigeria is that anyone, who loses a case in court, would allege that it was as a result of corruption.

“I want to plead with the Nigeria Bar Association to protect the Bench because the Bench cannot protect itself on matters of whether a judgement was right or wrong.

“In fairly controversial judgement involving a three-man panel in the Appeal Court, the judgment is one. Each of the three justices would express his opinion, the reasoning and conclusions.

“One would read the lead judgment and the others would say, I agree with the reasoning and the conclusions.

“So, there is nothing like three judgments. In one of the controversial judgments, I read, the reasoning was free, at the end, there were two conflicting conclusions. The first agreed with the general flow of the reasoning while the other one was against it.

“My plea is particularly to the Bar, because the Judicial officers are not in a position to either say their judgment was right or wrong.

“We must also bear in mind that corruption is a criminal offence. It has to be proven beyond reasonable doubts.

“Every wrong judgement as far as Nigerians are concerned, was a product of corruption.That is why I am appealing to the Bar, to protect Judiciary,” he added.

In his keynote address, a professor of law, and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Ernest Ojukwu, stressed the need for the judiciary to be digitalised in order to curb corruption.