IBADAN— NATIONAL Judicial Council (NJC) said yesterday in Ibadan that it would not condone any form of indiscipline in the nation’s judiciary.
An NJC delegation was led by Retired Justice Bola Babalakin who visited Governor Rashidi Ladoja on a fact-finding mission on the allegations leveled against the former Chief Judge of Oyo State Justice Isaiah Olakanmi and his subsequent removal from office by the state government.
Justice Babalakin, a former Justice of the Supreme Court said that the NJC visit was sequel to the letter earlier written to the State Government on the crisis within the state judiciary.
According to him, the NJC was committed into ensuring that Judiciary still remained the last hope of common man in the country regardless of the status or rank in the society.
He said that the NJC in the course of enforcing discipline among the rank and file of judiciary in the country had pronounced several disciplinary actions on judicial officers in some state of the federation.
His words “ We want to make a scan note that we don’’t condone indiscipline in the judiciary because that is the last hope for the common man. That is why you have seen us very active in dismissing, retiring erring ones.”
Justice Babalakin emphasized that we” are in the crusade together God forbid the day the judiciary will not live up to standard”.
Justice Babalakin said “the matter is in court therefore we have to keep quiet until the matters are decided by the court but we wish all the parties successful outcome of the tussle.
Welcoming the NJC team Governor Rashidi Ladoja said the removal from office of Justice Olakanmi as Oyo State Chief Judge was carried out to salvage the Oyo State Judiciary.
He explained that the removal should not be regarded as a witch-hunting but as a way of restoring people’’s trust on the state judiciary adding “ We have nothing against the CJ, no witch-hunting at all. Our intention is just to salvage the judiciary from the situation, and the earlier we get it over, the better for everybody.”
Governor Ladoja pointed out that if the state government should allow the matter to continue dragging, it will continue having ripples effects on the judiciary in Oyo State.
Said he “if the judiciary is now divided against itself, then, something must be wrong and if 23 of the 24 judges where you are the one to lead the 24 say they are protesting against your leadership, then, something is wrong.”
Continuing, the governor said, it was unfortunate that some people have turned the matter into newspapers issue adding “we don’’t believe in stating our own case on the pages of newspapers, that is why we are waiting for you people to state our case.”
Alhaji Ladoja said “our intention is very clean, our interest is to make sure that people still continue to respect judiciary in our state, the judiciary all of us are very proud of and anything that can tarnish image of that judiciary , we must all stand to stop it.”
