NIGERIA - A
shocking revelation was made on Thursday by the President of the
Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Joseph Daudu, SAN of a certain judge who
retired from the Bench at the mandatory 65 years of age and died two
years later, only for his family to announce in his obituary that he
died at age 80.
Daudu, who spoke at the valedictory court session
in honour of the retiring Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice
Dahiru Musdapher, was silent on the identity of the affected judge.
He
advocated scientific evaluation of aspiring judges’ ages to curb
widespread falsification of age by judicial officers, while calling on
the incoming Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar, to
speedily sack ailing judicial officers with debilitating medical
conditions that have incapacitated them.
“A number of Heads of
Courts are faced with very sick judicial officers; these officers are
afflicted with varying debilitating medical conditions that completely
impair their ability to perform judicial functions.
“These
include loss of eye sight, hearing, terminal physiological ailments,
chronic contagious diseases, among others. In most cases, these officers
remain on the Bench doing no work for years and collecting their
salaries and perquisites. It is time strict rules were devised, through
expeditious medical boards of assessment, to determine the state of
health and ability of such sick and non-performing judicial officers to
continue in judicial service.”
Tribune
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