The Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Tanko Muhammad, on Tuesday, picked holes in the claim by the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), that the judiciary should be held responsible for delays in the trial and delivery of judgements on corruption cases involving politically exposed individuals, saying it “appears to be one-sided.”

According to him, although the Nigerian judiciary “is not here to lay claim to be perfect, but when the political and economic conditions under which it is operating is compared with its counterparts in other climes, it will be adjudged a prized model.”

The CJN made the clarification in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media, Ahuraka Isah, titled, ‘Judiciary can’t be blamed for delays in high-profiled cases’.

He said the judiciary, by its constitutional position, did not have a criminal investigation unit or fraud detective squad to detect and investigate criminal involvement of any person, nor did it have a garrison command to fight its cause or enforce its orders and decisions.

The statement read in part, “One only hopes that these allegations against the judiciary by the Federal Government are not just a way of giving a dog a bad name so as to then hang it.

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“More often than not, the Federal Government’s prosecution sector files more charges than it can prove or provide witnesses to prove, ostensibly at times for the prosecution to even fail.

“The Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 under reference is infected with sores in some parts, making speeding adjudications improbable in some instances, in addition to high volume of cases, limited number of judges, poor infrastructure or archaic equipment.

“While giving reasons for its under-funding of the judiciary, the Federal Government said on January 26, 2022, at the Nigerian Bar Association Justice Sector Summit 2022 in Abuja that judiciary has not been transparent in the spending of budgets allocated to it each fiscal year.

“Although the judiciary has refrained from joining issues all this while but to state the facts in line with the budget call circular and ceiling the Federal Government sent to the judiciary before the commencement of the fiscal year, the judiciary prepares its budget estimates for capital, overhead cost and personnel cost, according to the ceiling, needs and priority.

“The judiciary defends its budget before the Senate and the House of Representatives committees on the Judiciary at the National Assembly, besides the initial vetting by the executive.”

It added, “The judiciary has an internal mechanism for budget control and implementation. Each court and judicial body has a budget unit, the account department, internal audit, due process unit, as well as departmental tenders’ board. There is also a due process committee at the NJC and the Judicial Tenders Board that award contracts on expenditure above the approval limit of the accounting officers of the courts and judicial bodies.

“These layers of control were established by the judiciary to ensure transparency, accountability and effective budget implementation; the type of transparency that the Federal Government has stressed.

“Similarly, by virtue of sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution, the National Assembly carries out oversight visits to the judiciary to monitor the implementation of its budget. Section 88(2)(b) also mandates the National Assembly to expose corruption, inefficiency or waste in the execution or administration of laws within its legislative competence and in the disbursement or administration of funds appropriated by it.