Rivers Rejects NJC’s Plan To Appoint Okocha CJ

The National Judicial Council (NJC), has been accused of embarking on another circuit tour to impose Hon. Justice Daisy Wotube Okocha as chief judge on the Rivers State Judiciary.
The Rivers State Government has, however, vowed that it would “administratively and legally use all ways and means known to law, including its powers under the Constitution and all other extant laws, to resist.”
The Rivers State Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mrs. Ibim Semenitari, said that though it “holds the NJC, as a body, in high esteem, especially because its members are eminent members of the Learned Profession of Law,” it wonders what special interest the Chief Justice in person, and the NJC, in general, have in Rivers State as to contemplate such obviously unconstitutional and illegal act against the state judiciary.
In a statement in Port Harcourt, the state capital yesterday, the government said it had discovered plans by the NJC “to privately appoint, through the back door, Justice Daisy Wotube Okocha as the chief judge of Rivers State and then direct all the judges of the Rivers State judiciary to accept directives and instructions from the said judge in that capacity,” saying that the NJC’s latest moves are clearly against the judgement of the Federal High Court which voided NJC’s recommendation of this same judge.”
Narrating how NJC intends to execute the plot, Rivers State Government said the national judicial advisory body has created an illegal and unconstitutional designation it categorised as ‘Administrative Judge’ just for Justice Okocha, adding that, the term, which it described as both “contraption and contrivance” is unknown to both the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Rivers State’s High Court Law.
NJC, which has stalled judicial activities in Rivers State, has battled Rivers State for months, insisting that only Okocha, its choice, would be appointed chief judge of Rivers State, a move vehemently opposed by the state.
Governor Chibuike Amaechi had sworn into office Hon. Justice Peter Agumagu as chief judge, an action that attracted the NJC to suspend the chief judge, accused Agumagu of working at variance with his judicial oath.
Meanwhile, Agumagu has dragged NJC to a Federal High Court in Abuja seeking to have the suspension lifted.
A court of similar power but sitting in Port Harcourt had in a judgment on the matter, berated NJC for acting unconstitutionally.

President Goodluck Jonathan (left) receiving a letter from the Khalifah Sheikh, Ahmed Tijani Inyass (right) who visited the Presidential Villa, Abuja last Saturday. With them is the son of the Sheikh, Ahmed-Tijani Awalu.