Lawyers reject the plot to remove Chief Judge of Kogi State

 Lawyers reject the plot to remove Chief Judge of Kogi State

A civil society group, the Federation of Lawyers In Active Democracy (FLAD), condemned the resolution of the Kogi State House of Assembly calling for the removal from office of the state's chief judge, Nasir Ajanah.

Tuesday, the State House of Assembly passed a resolution calling for Mr Ajanah's sack for alleged "financial infringement." Reacting to the development through a statement signed by its chairman, Arome Husseini, the group condemned the resolution on Friday in Abuja and described it as "null and void and without any effect."

The group claimed the governor of the state, Yahaya Bello, was behind the plot to remove the chief judge and appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to order the governor. They charged the state assembly with acting as the governor's "puppet."

"This is another example of the state governor's intolerance of democratic institutions, the separation of power, and the constitution-guaranteed checks and balances," he said. 

The group said that the State House of Assembly ignored the provisions of the amended 1999 Constitution on the removal of a chief judge.  

' The Constitution of I999 as amended, Section 271(1) 292(1)(ii)(a) and the third Schedule, paragraph 21 part 1 of the same Constitution, which provided for the removal of the Chief Judge of a State, was completely ignored by the House of Assembly, alleged to have been ' degraded by the Governor of the State, Mr Yahaya Bello, to a puppet theater.

"There must be certain conditions and it must be proven that they exist before a House of Assembly can even contemplate the exercise of passing a resolution to remove the Chief Judge of a State in the status sited supra" "Any Government with even the least legal advice should know that you are not waking up, acting by malice or anger or incitement, to announce that you have passed If it's a casual undertaking, the resolution to remove the CJ."

The group claimed that Mr Ajanah's labors began when he resisted the governor's interference in a criminal case involving a "controversial federal legislator" that he allegedly demanded should never be granted bail.

"A bitter, deliberate and sustained program of hounding the judiciary came to town almost immediately after this story, and the CJ began to unfold in Kogi State. As a result, nearly 10-month salary arrears are due to the staff of the state judiciary.

"The State Governor has illegally and unconstitutionally withheld all allocations due to the judiciary since May/June last year in an effort to muscle the judiciary," FLAD said in the statement.

Mr Bello,  said on Friday that he respects the doctrine of the separation of powers, adding that doctrine means that all three governmental arms in the state are expected to operate independently without interference.

He has no interference with what is happening between the Chief Justice and the Judiciary in the State House of Assembly. Kogi state government would never interfere with what's going on in the legislature and the judiciary, "the governor said through his Chief Press Secretary, Onogwu Muhammed.