By: President Aigbokhan, Esq
Farooq Kperogi’s recent commentary on the rumored appointment of Hon. Justice Abdullahi Mohammed Liman, JCA (hereinafter referred to as ‘Justice Liman’), as INEC chairman raises more eyebrows than a web of resistance.
The piece alluded to the partisan musings of Buba Galadima, who has vowed to burn down the country if the appointment is made.
Kperogi acknowledges Buba’s threat as hyperbole but treats it as a framing device for his conclusion, and without offering readers the constitutional grounding that the subject demands.
What is striking in Kperogi’s portrait of Justice Liman is the reliance on press clippings over judicial records.
Instead of engaging with the court’s reasoning or the National Judicial Council’s findings, he elevates headlines above jurisprudence.
Yet most of the allegations he recycles were either dismissed by the NJC or upheld by appellate review, a fact that undercuts the charge of bias he so eagerly presses
A more diligent inquiry would have shown that in 2014 Justice Liman delivered the landmark ruling affirming prisoners’ right to vote, a rare and powerful affirmation of democratic inclusion. That omission is telling.
By leaving out one of the most illuminating contributions to Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence, Kperogi presents only the shadows of Justice Liman’s career while leaving out one of its most illuminating contributions to Nigeria’s electoral rights discourse.
In Aigbokhan President & 36 ORS v Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) & 3 ORS (FHC/B/CS/21/2015), a coalition of Edo-based activists, with me as lead applicant and counsel, turned to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to probe the NDDC’s finances.
We sought certified copies of documents and receipts accounting for ₦308 billion (about $500 million at the time) appropriated to the Commission between 2012 and 2014.
We also pressed for a declaration that access to information is a fundamental right, and for an order directing an audit of the Commission.
The court, in a landmark decision, affirmed the right to information as a self-standing fundamental human right, the first such recognition on the continent.
While the court declined to compel an audit, reasoning that only the executive may initiate such a process and noting the absence of nominated auditors, the judgment was nonetheless pivotal.
Acting on our follow-up to President Muhammadu Buhari, who received a certified copy of the ruling, the federal government directed a forensic audit of the NDDC.
Behind the veil of the headlines, the judge who carried that torch of accountability was none other than Justice Liman.
Why does Kperogi turn a blind eye to the activist judge’s progressive record, as though controversy eclipses every contribution?
The conversation on whether Nigeria’s electoral framework is robust enough to withstand partisan appointments is apt, but Kperogi’s conclusion that Justice Liman is a partisan figure lacks demonstrable fact.
By reducing a long and complex judicial career to the label of partisanship, Kperogi offers a caricature of his thought process and discipline.
His article misses the chance to interrogate what institutional reforms could safeguard INEC against capture, no matter who is appointed. If his aim was truly to warn against the dangers of politicising INEC.
The real challenge, therefore, is not rumors about who Tinubu may or may not want but whether the appointee is strong enough to withstand pressure and ensure that elections in Nigeria are credible, accountable, innovative, and inclusive.
Justice Liman has left a far more consequential legacy than the controversies Kperogi projects. Time and again, he has risen to test the limits of state power and press institutions back within constitutional bounds.
He belongs to that rare fraction of a fraction, the finest judicial minds of northern Nigeria. The arc of his career has bent toward widening access to justice, not to weaken the system but to fortify it, making it sturdier, more transparent, and more accountable to the rule of law.
As a development lawyer, I count him among the finest judges before whom I have ever argued. He does not settle for cosmetic fixes; he treats the soil to bring the roots back to life, instead of painting green the rotten leaves of a dying tree.
Should his rumored appointment be confirmed, it would stand as a providential response to the long-neglected plight of inmates whose constitutional right to be included in the voters’ register remains unfulfilled.
President Aigbokhan is a development lawyer and is the Gani Fawehinmi Impact Award 2024 by HEDA Resource Centre and the Black History Month Nominee, MLDI, UK, 2023
