Founding National Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Dr. Chekwas Okorie, has said the recent disciplinary sanctions meted to three justices of the Federal High Court amounts “to too little, too late.”

Last Wednesday, the National Judicial Council handed down a one-year suspension without pay to three judicial officers, including one Justice of the Court of Appeal, for actions considered as judicial misconduct.

NJC’s Deputy Director of Information, Kemi Ogedengbe, had in a statement listed the affected officers as Justice Jane Inyang of the Court of Appeal, Uyo Division; Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, and Justice Aminu Baffa Aliyu of the Federal High Court, Zamfara Division.

But, commenting on the disciplinary actions in an interaction with The Guardian, Okorie regretted that the sanctions were quite insignificant to what the Supreme Court has done to Nigeria’s democratic system.

Alluding to the absence of any Justice of the Apex Court in the NJC’s review, Okorie, who was also the presidential candidate of the United Nigeria Progressives Party (UNPP), said the Supreme Court ruling on the issue of the defection of 27 members of Rivers State House of Assembly sticks out as a sore thumb in need of a cure.

He said: “The Supreme Court said that there was no evidence to show that people who decamped from their party, PDP to APC in Rivers publicly, filed an affidavit in court, which everybody saw on video, and they were proud of it.

“When the implication dawned on them, they said they didn’t decamp anymore. And the Supreme Court said there was no evidence before it to prove that they decamped. What is the effect of that?

“The effect of that bad judgment is what has just happened recently in Delta State because the Supreme Court can always say there is no evidence that they should surrender their seats.

“When there is even for an illiterate, who can barely read, and we can see it written in the Constitution that outside of the Governor, President, Vice President and Deputy Governor, every other elected person loses his seat mandatorily upon changing camp.”

Regretting that the Nigerian judiciary seems to be rewarding bad behaviour among politicians, Okorie said that such rulings emboldened educated people, like Dr. Ifeanyi Okowa and even Pastor Umo Eno, to contemplate abandoning the party that gave them a platform for public service.

He added: “Even when Rochas (Okorocha) dumped APGA, all of them keep saying that the political party is simply a vehicle to move from one point to another. Who defined a political party like that? Where did they get that definition?

“So, it is the legal system we are running and the Supreme Court, the highest court of the land, that has foisted this major setback to our efforts to have a proper and progressive democratic system.

“Judicial endorsement of procedural manipulation exposes Nigerians as people who do not know who is good and who is bad. They know and they vote for the good ones, but they give them the bad ones. And you go to the court and mess it up.”