The Chief Justice of Nigeria Olukayode Ariwoola reportedly nominated his daughter Justice Victoria Oluwakemi as the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Abuja.
The 69-year-old CJN began designing to induct his daughter on the bench after he was notified in a January 18, 2024, letter from Husseini Baba-Yusuf, the chief judge of the FCT High Court, that 12 new positions had opened up in the court.
The nomination was revealed through documents obtained by PeoplesGazette and judiciary sources familiar with the process.
Oluwakemi Victoria Ariwoola nepotism act is the latest beneficiary of an active determination of the nation’s most-senior jurist to enroot the court system with family members and loyalists before his mandatory retirement in August 2024.
Ariwoola also successfully installed his younger brother, Adebayo Ariwoola, as the auditor of the National Judicial Council, while his nephew, Lateef Ganiyu, was recently promoted to the appeal court.
Also, some of his other relatives are heading diverse positions across the judiciary bureaucracy, according to a recent observation by human rights lawyer-Chidi Odinkalu, who has been tracking nepotism as a growing issue in the judiciary.
Baba-Yusuf reportedly urged Ariwoola, Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice (AGF), Lateef Fagbemi and the President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Yakubu Chonoko Maikyau, to send candidates drawn from a dozen states.
Baba-Yusuf was quoted as saying,
“In line with the National Judicial Council Guidelines and Procedural Rules for Appointment of Judicial Officers to Superior Courts, I hereby invite your lordships, the honourable attorney-general of the federation and minister of justice and the president of the Nigerian Bar Association to kindly nominate suitably qualified persons from the aforementioned states for appointment to the Federal Capital Territory High Court.”
He added that they should forward their candidates with resumés to his chambers latest by January 19, 2024.
Baba-Yusuf listed the states due to feed candidates to the court as Bauchi, Bayelsa, Enugu, Imo, Kogi, Kwara, Lagos, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers, Taraba and Zamfara.
It was reported that Oyo already has two judges on the FCT High Court, Mohammed Alhaji Madugu and Ajoke Adepoju from Saki and Ibadan South-West LGAs respectively.
The court has 70 judges system-wide and they are selected across the 36 states and FCT. Some states have two or three judges, while some, like Ebonyi, have none.
Officials said that Ebonyi should have been among the 12 states to fill vacancies as it currently has no position on the court, but another seat was opened for Oyo to allow the CJN to fill it with his daughter, which would give Oyo three slots at the expense of states without a single slot.
The CJN personally asked the FCT CJ to do this exercise to employ his daughter-in-law before his retirement in August”.
A judiciary source said. “When is he going to realise that the Nigerian judiciary is not his personal asset?”
Judiciary workers also took issues with Mrs Ariwoola’s nomination because she is a junior magistrate with only three years’ experience, having been appointed first in 2020. She’s currently a grade two at Wuse Zone 2.
The chief judge has been trying to avoid any controversy for now, the official said under anonymity Sunday night. “His hands may be tied right now with the nomination of the chief justice’s daughter, but he might call his colleagues to a meeting and let them see things from his own point of view.”
