The Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Tanko Muhammad, says the legal profession will not lead the country if lawyers and judges indulge in reckless behaviour in their official duties.
Mr Muhammad spoke on Tuesday in Abuja while swearing in Husseini Baba-Yusuf as the substantive Chief Judge of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) High Court, Abuja.
His assertion is coming on the heels of the Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), which is taking place in Port-Harcourt, Rivers State. The CJN spoke against the backdrop of The NBA’s 61st AGC tagged ‘Taking the Lead.’
He said the legal profession should take the lead in all human endeavours but pointed out the impediments. “We cannot take the lead when our courts issue ex-parte orders recklessly. We cannot take the lead when many litigants with support of their counsel engage in forum shopping.
“We cannot take the lead when counsel file a case before a court that they know lacks jurisdiction and the Judge proceeds to hear the case. We cannot take the lead when counsel files frivolous cases in our courts just for nuisance value or to buy time,” Mr Muhammad said. It will be recalled that the CJN had in September warned heads of courts to prevail on their colleagues to stop the gale of conflicting orders that had hit the judiciary, which he described as “nonsense.”
The CJN recalled his warning to “judges to desist from engaging themselves in unwholesome practices that will erode public confidence in the administration of justice.”
