Senate Confirms Justice Ariwoola as Chief Justice of Nigeria

The Nigerian Senate on Wednesday confirmed the nomination of Justice Olukayode Ariwoola as the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN). The confirmation followed his screening at its plenary in Abuja, the nation’s capital.

The Chief Justice who had a smooth session with the Senators was nevertheless taken to task on many issues. Responding to one of the issues Justice Ariwoola said the major challenge of the judiciary was inadequate funding of its operations. He demanded the funding of the judiciary adding that judges should not be seen as begging.

Responding to an allegation that some judges wrote a petition against the immediate past CJN, Ariwoola responded that there was no petition of such nature. According to him, what got leaked to the media was a letter of complaints by 14 justices on issues relating to the workings of the judiciary and the welfare of judicial officers.

“The 14 of us wrote and delivered by hand to our brother, the past CJN, how it got to the newspapers, we do not know, we had no problems with our number one. There was no petition against the CJN, we were not protesting, we only put our complaints on paper to our brother.”

Looking ahead, he said it was his desire to introduce technology into the operations of the nation’s judicial system.

The new CJN also explained that machinery had been put in place to amend the rules and procedures of courts to ensure improved operations of their processes.

He called for the appointment of more judges to facilitate speedy dispensation of cases, while also advocating that final judgements on some cases should be made to end at the appeal courts. On issues relating to the appointment of judges, he explained that the constitution is clear on the mode of appointment.

Justice Ariwoola said that some of these issues are constitutional matters which require amendments of the constitution.

He called on the National Assembly to help in amending the laws on such matters.

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