SERAP Issues 7-Day Ultimatum To CJN Over Corrupt Judges

Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project, (SERAP) has sent an open letter to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed requesting him to use his “good offices and leadership of the National Judicial Council (NJC) to immediately take over from the Department of State Service (DSS) the cases of all the 7 judges released by the DSS and refer the cases of those judges to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) and the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) for conclusion of investigation and prompt prosecution,”

The organization asked the NJC to “refer the cases of the 7 released judges to the EFCC and ICPC within 7 days of the receipt and/or publication of this letter. SERAP will take appropriate legal action to compel the NJC to take action on the cases if it fails and/or refuses to act as requested.”

In the letter dated 11 October 2016 and signed by SERAP executive director Adetokunbo Mumuni the organization expressed serious concern that “the NJC has for many years failed to appropriately deal with several cases of corrupt judges by failing to refer those cases to the EFCC and ICPC for prosecution. Many of these suspected corrupt judges are still alive and their cases should be promptly referred to the anticorruption agencies. The NJC under your leadership should seize the opportunity of the just released 7 judges to comprehensively address corruption in the judiciary,” part of the letter read.