Nigerian Secret Police releases official details of how Judge allegedly took bribes

The ongoing crackdown on senior judges across the country will not end without the arrest of a judge attached to the Port Harcourt Division of the Federal High Court, PREMIUM TIMES learnt late Sunday.

Sources at the State Security Services (SSS), said Mohammed Liman allegedly took bribes from Governor Nyesom Wike to give favourable judgment to the Ahmed Makarfi-led faction of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The sources also accused the judge of habitually crossing Nigerian borders to allegedly receive bribes from litigants.

In a nationwide operation, scores of SSS operatives descended on the homes of senior judges between late Friday and Saturday, arresting seven of them after searching their residences.

The development sparked divergent reactions across the country, with some Nigerians and professional bodies condemning the raids.

Most of the critics said the raids were reminiscent of the dark military era which Nigerians assumed had ended with the return of democracy in 1999.

But an undaunted SSS in a statement Saturday said the nocturnal operation yielded recoveries of huge sums of money denominated in different currencies, including the U.S. dollars, euros and British pounds.

On Sunday evening, a top SSS official told PREMIUM TIMES that operatives were still tracking Mr. Liman and would ensure his arrest in the coming days after the initial attempt was thwarted by Mr. Wike.

Mr. Liman is among eight other judges being investigated apart from the seven arrested in the Friday night raids.

The source said Mr. Liman allegedly took bribes to subvert justice in the leadership tussle within the PDP which has left the party factionalised for several months.

Mr. Liman’s July ruling authenticated the Ahmed Makarfi faction‎ of the PDP which had been deemed illegal by Justice Okon Abang.

The PDP crisis culminated in another botched convention in August, although the opposing parties are currently working to end the quagmire.

“We received a petition that he (Mr. Liman) received bribes to give his ruling and our investigations confirmed it,” a top SSS official told PREMIUM TIMES.

The source added that Mr. Liman is “also a distributor” who receives bribes on behalf of other judges and helps distribute it.

“He travels across the border to Ghana, Republic of Benin and other West African countries to meet lawyers in hotels to take bribes for himself and his colleagues on the bench,” he said.

The source also said the amount involved in Mr. Liman’s botched arrest on Saturday morning was actually $2.5 million, and gave more explanation as to why operatives’ failed to arrest the judge or get the money.

“The vehicle that was used to cart away the $2million was faster than our men’s own,” the source said. “They just couldn’t catch up with them at such a high speed. It’s like chasing a 7-cylinder vehicle with a 3-cylinder.”

“We will arrest him in coming days; we have no doubt about this as we have enough evi‎dence to nail him in court. By bringing Governor Wike in, he has worsened his own case.”

But Governor Nyesom Wike whom the SSS blamed for interfering to frustrate the planned Friday night arrest of Mr. Liman, in a statement early Sunday dismissed the allegations as an attempt by the SSS to divert attention from its gross desecration of the constitution.‎

The SSS “concocted” the allegations to justify an “unconstitutional assault on the nation’s judiciary,” Mr. Wike said.

Mr. Wike said he didn’t know the judge, but he moved in to prevent him from being taken away because the mode of the SSS arrest did not comply with the dictates of the law.

“In the police, erring and corrupt policemen are first given orderly room trial, sacked and then appropriately prosecuted,” Mr. Wike said. “For judicial officers, the SSS has no role.”

“I am not in support of any judicial support being involved in corruption,” but “this impunity must stop.”

Justice Liman has also been quoted as denying the allegation against him.

“I’m not asking anybody to believe or disbelieve whether I stashed $2m, an amount that is equivalent to about N1b,” TheNigerianLawyer quoted the judge as saying in a statement.

“Perhaps you might think the SSS probably exaggerated the amount, but all these would have been relevant considerations if they had actually searched my house.

“If I had $2m or even a quarter of it I would have abandoned this horrible profession that has lost its dignity.In fact I have already lost interest in it and have made up my mind to say bye bye to it. I believe there is a life beyond every other thing.”

The Nigerian Bar Association, the umbrella organisation of lawyers, condemned the raids as an attempt to intimidate judges and demanded an immediate release of those arrested.

“We are in a democratic society and we cannot accept a situation where armed, masked SSS operatives invade homes of the justices of the Supreme Court and judges of our high courts.

“This is a ploy by the executive to intimidate the judiciary and we will not accept it. The NBA will not accept it. I want to emphasise again that we’re not under military rule and we cannot accept this Gestapo style of operations.” Abubakar Mahmoud, NBA president, said Saturday.

But a senior lawyer, Femi Falana, said the action of the operatives was justified since the bar and the bench had allegedly failed to check corruption in the judiciary.

He called for the prompt trial of the arrested judges.‎

President Buhari also said on Sunday that the SSS did not flout the law in its arrest and detention of the judges.

“There is a convergence of views that the country has a corruption problem that needs to be corrected,” Mr. Buhari said in a statement signed by his media aide, Garba Shehu.

Over 55s in England housing wealth worth more than Italian GDP

People aged over 55 in England hold more wealth in the value of their properties than the entire annual GDP of Italy, new research suggests.

A report commissioned by retirement firm Age Partnership found that over 55s in England currently own property collectively worth £1.5tn - which is £100bn more than annual Italian GDP.

It also beats the GDPs of Brazil and Spain by £300bn and £600bn respectively.

The figure makes the population group one of the richest in the world when it comes to owning property.

The research also found that the staggering total, which was calculated using English Housing Survey data on the number of over 55s who own their home outright, alongside average house prices from the Land Registry, is only likely to increase.

Official population projections estimate that the number of people over the age of 55 living in England is expected to grow by a third over the next two decades, with property wealth almost doubling over the same period.

If this were to be the case, Age Partnership found that the amount of money locked in property owned by those over 55 in England could reach £2.9tn by 2036, should house prices increase by 2% annually.

Even if house prices were to stay static, the population changes would mean property wealth would reach £1.9tn in the next 20 years.

Simon Chalk, equity release expert at Age Partnership, said of the research: "A small fortune is locked away in the houses owned by the older generation in England."

"This stored wealth cannot be ignored: housing must become a primary part of retirement financial planning and we need to open up more channels to help over-55s benefit from it. 

"Over the next 20 years housing wealth will become increasingly important, as the baby-boomers generation reach retirement en-masse.

"Pensions will continue to cause a headache as the population ages.

"Adding property wealth to the mix could help alleviate that pressure."

Reports: Samsung halts production of Note 7 phone

Samsung Electronics has temporarily suspended production of its Galaxy Note 7 smartphones following reports of fires in replacement devices, according to South Korean media.

Monday's move is a further setback for the technology giant in the midst of its worst ever phone recall crisis.

"[Samsung] still hasn’t confirmed that it has definitely halted production of the Galaxy Note 7 but it has released a statement for the first time today, Monday, in the last hour or so, saying that it is ‘temporarily adjusting the Galaxy Note 7 schedule to take further steps to ensure quality and safety matters’," Al Jazeera's Harry Fawcett said, reporting from Seoul. 

The Yonhap News Agency reported that Samsung's decision to halt Note 7 production was done in cooperation with authorities in China and the US, citing an unnamed source at a Samsung partner company.

"If the Note 7 is allowed to continue it could lead to the single greatest act of brand self-destruction in the history of modern technology," Eric Schiffer, brand strategy expert and chairman of Reputation Management Consultants, told Reuters news agency.

'Let off hook by Hillary': debate verdicts

The second presidential TV debate had been billed as one of the most bitter encounters in US history - with both candidates' treatment of women taking centre stage.

Here are some of the views of people watching and tweeting:

US chat show host Jerry Springer: "While I may not be able to moderate a debate, sounds like Mike Pence and Donald Trump might need to come on my show to talk things out."

Film-maker Michael Moore: "The crash & burn of Donald Trump didn't happen tonight. He didn't lose a single vote, maybe gained some. She again was the smart 1. And kind."

Arianna Huffington, founder of Huffington Post: "Okay, you can let the kids back into the living room - the presidential debate is over. #debate."

Star Trek star George Takei: "Trump keeps trying to deny what is plain as day in his tweets and for all to hear on those video tapes. He may lie, but the record doesn't." 

Political commentator Iain Dale: "Debate verdict? Loathsome Trump let off the hook by Hillary. He lives to fight another day. Which presumably is just what Hillary wanted."

:: Political science professor Dante Scala: "I didn't see enough this evening to turn things around. The news of the last 48 hours will continue to settle into voter's minds and I'm not sure this debate will be enough in itself to change the trajectory of the race."

Actress Emmy Rossum: "Hate in a heart is what YOU HAVE, Donald Trump [not Hillary]."

Mike Pense, Mr Trump's running mate: "Congrats to my running mate @realDonaldTrump on a big debate win! Proud to stand with you as we #MAGA." 

Political commentator Sally Kohn: "So everybody noticed that Donald Trump really didn't say anything substantive, right?"

Former attorney general Eric Holder: "In the USA we do not threaten to jail political opponents. @realDonaldTrump said he would. He is promising to abuse the power of the office."

Politics professor Larry Sabato: "Trump has done well enough to stop GOP bleeding."

Foreign workers 'will not be named by firms' - Home Office

The Government has denied companies will be forced to "name and shame" foreign workers as part of a move to encourage them to recruit local workers. 

Home Secretary Amber Rudd announced at the Tory party conference that a consultation would be launched on plans aimed at boosting the employment of UK citizens and reducing immigration in the wake of the vote to leave the European Union.

Among the measures was a plan to compel companies to reveal how many foreign workers they were employing, but this provoked an angry backlash from critics, including the British Chambers of Commerce and Ms Rudd's own brother.  

Former Downing Street policy chief Steve Hilton described the plan as worse than Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump's suggestion he would ban Muslims from entering the US.

Writing in The Sunday Times, he said ministers might as well have announced that "foreign workers will be tattooed with numbers on their forearms".

Former education secretary Nicky Morgan, speaking on Sky's Murnaghan programme, agreed with Mr Hilton that the idea was "repugnant".

"I was very surprised Amber Rudd put forward that proposal because that is not the Amber Rudd I know, " she said. 

"The trouble with these sort of policies is they send out a message about the party, about the way we want to approach people coming to this country."

However, a Home Office spokesman said it had never been the idea to publish the details of foreign workers, but simply to compile the numbers. 

"This is not about listing foreign workers or so-called 'naming and shaming' of companies," he said. 

"The proportion of international workers in a company is one of the pieces of information that companies may be asked to provide to the government.

"This information will not be published. This already happens in the US and is one of several proposals we will be consulting on as part of our work to ensure that companies take reasonable steps to recruit at home before looking to bring in workers from abroad."

Education Secretary Justine Greening said the Government wanted to count the number of foreign workers being employed in the UK to inform policy.

"This is about informing policy so that we understand particularly which areas and parts of the country where there are skill shortages evidenced by the fact that employers are not taking local workers as much as they might do," she told ITV.

Nigeria’s Judiciary harbours “corrupt elements” – Justice Salami

Justice Ayo Salami named Ibrahim Auta, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, as one of the corrupt elements.

A former President of the Court of Appeal, Wednesday, came down hard on the Nigerian judiciary, accusing it of harbouring “corrupt elements.”

Ayo Salami, who spoke at the 10th Gani Fawehinmi annual lecture in Lagos, stated that the problem with the Nigerian judiciary is that “some dishonourable people “not fit to be judges get into the system and make it to the highest level of the judicial career.

Mr. Salami was forced to retire in October last year after serving more than 30 months suspension on the orders of President Goodluck Jonathan.

While singling out Ibrahim Auta, the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, as well as some senior lawyers, Mr. Salami noted that the common man’s quest for justice is further diminished with such characters in the judiciary.

“Another major point why the problem with the judiciary will remain unresolved or even compounded for a long time is that Nigerians do not naturally want the truth to be told. Whoever dares to tell the truth is marked for destruction,” Mr. Salami said at the event organized by the Ikeja chapter of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA.

“You members of the Bar often tell sordid stories or tales of certain high ranking serving or retired judicial officers who act as ‘arrangees’ or couriers of bribe. That is, such are engaged at a fee to reach out to judges to influence or ‘purchase’ justice in certain sensitive cases.”

Following a disagreement between Mr. Salami and Aloysius Katsina-Alu, then Chief Justice of Nigeria, over an election petition matter involving Sokoto State, the National Judicial Council, NJC, set up a series of panels to investigate some of the complaints.

Among other things, one of the panels recommended that Mr. Salami apologize to Mr. Katsina-Alu, a recommendation which the former blatantly rejected.

“I should like to let you know that in the course of my travails, the NJC set up the Auta Committee (Justice Auta is a completely junior judge or judicial officer to me) to make recommendation on the NJC Investigative Panel (Justice Umaru Abdullah’s Panel).

“This was meant to humiliate me. But God turned the humiliation to vindication for me, in that the Auta Committee adopted a laughable procedure by introducing a completely new dimension to the case without giving me any hearing at all,” said Mr. Salami.

“The issue of my breaking the Code of Conduct for Judicial Officers by speaking to the Press was never raised, not to talk of being tried at the NJC Investigative Panel. The Auta Committee, however, flew above its mandate and said it took ‘judicial notice’ of the fact that I spoke to the Press and this formed part of the recommendations of his Committee which was supposed to act only on the NJC Investigative Panel’s findings,” he added.

Mr. Salami said that the Justice Auta’s panel had already set out from the outset to indict him at all cost.

“During the period, I had a case pending at the Federal High Court in Abuja to stop the proceedings before the Committee. When told by a member of the Committee that I had a case challenging their sitting at the Federal High Court and that they should not proceed on the assignment, he said they had not been served and were not inclined to stop further proceedings on the matter.

“Obviously, the conclusion was already predetermined because it is very elementary that what was important was not service but notice of the process.”

Mr. Salami said that the efforts of the current Chief Justice of Nigeria, Maryam Mukhtar, to rid the judiciary of corrupt elements are being frustrated by the crop of people calling the shots at the NJC.

“When the controversy surrounding my suspension was raging, a young member of the profession soliloquized that if Gani (Fawehinmi) were alive, he would have gone to court.

“I agree, but to which court would he have gone? An intimidated and frightened court? All it requires is a call to the head of the court and it is done,” he added.

The lecture was organized by the NBA, Ikeja chapter, and was titled ‘Nigeria at centenary: A nation still in bondage?’

But the retired judge slammed the lawyers, accusing some of their senior colleagues of contributing to the rot in judiciary.

“There are some who have the capacity to influence and intimidate the Courts and they do so with relish,” said Mr. Salami.

“I wish the Nigerian Bar Association would have the will, ability and capacity to implement the recommendations of the Okpoko Committee that carried out NBA’s independent investigation into the Sokoto Case which led to my travails.

“Unfortunately, NBA which had a good report in its hands could not impose sanctions on members of your Bar that were indicted therein (probably because ‘prominent’ senior lawyers were involved). Again, we have to leave this to history, posterity and ultimately God.

“Sometimes (and when it matters) some members of the Bar representing NBA on the NJC hardly stand up for the truth not to talk of speaking the truth,” he added.

FILE: Three times the FBI arrested ‘corrupt’ judges in US — just like the DSS

Just like the Department of State Services (DSS) arrested some judges for alleged corruption last Friday, a cursory check of possible instances shows that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) – the closest thing to Nigeria’s DSS – has a history of acting in like manner on judges.

The DSS raided the homes of some judges across country, claiming it recovered huge wads from them. The secret police arrested some of them.

Some of the judges the DSS arrested are Adeniyi Ademola and Nnamdi Dimgba (federal high court), and Slyvester Ngwuta and John Okoro (supreme court).

Ademola is the judge handling the trial of Sambo Dasuki, former national security adviser (NSA), who is being prosecuted by the DSS for alleged illegal possession of firearms and money laundering.

The judge has been critical of the DSS owing its refusal to release Dasuki after he had granted him bail.

Dimgba has also criticised the DSS for its high-handedness.

The DSS claims it is on a mission to sanitise the judiciary.

A debate now rages over the propriety of their action.

But here are three instances from the world’s “greatest democracy”.

JANUARY 2013

On January 31, 2013, the FBI arrested nine judges for “conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud, wire fraud, mail fraud, perjury, making false statements to the FBI, and aiding and abetting”.

One of the judges, Willie Singletary, was seen in a video meeting with a motorcycle club called the Philadelphia First State Road Rattlers, saying: “There’s going to be a basket going around because I’m running for Traffic Court judge, right, and I need some money. I got some stuff that I got to do, but if you all can give me $20 you’re going to need me in Traffic Court. Am I right about that? … Now you all want me to get there, you’re all going to need my hook-up, right?”

Some of the accused judges — who were on the bench between 2008 and 2011 — are William Hird and Michael Sullivan.

They faced hundreds of years in prison.

NOVEMBER 2015

On November 4, 2015, the agency arrested a superior North Carolina court judge for bribery and corruption.

The judge,  Arnold Jones II allegedly attempted to bribe an FBI agent for information on what he described as a “family matter.” He faced about 37 years in jail.

Prosecutors said he approached the unidentified FBI officer in October 2015, and the two subsequently met in Goldsboro to exchange $100 for a disk supposedly containing the text messages.

Jones initially offered to give the officer “a couple cases of beer” for his help but later agreed to $100 in cash.

MAY 2014

Also, on May 30, 2014, it arrested a superior Puerto Rico court judge for bribery.

Manuel Acevedo Hernandez, the judge, was accused of accepting bribes to pervert the cause of justice in a fatal drunk-driving case. He was detained at his home after the FBI concluded its investigation.

The 62-year-old was detained at his home in the northwestern coastal town of Aguadilla.

The indictment also charges that the judge agreed to acquit Lutgardo Acevedo Lopez, a certified public accountant, in exchange for help in being promoted to appellate judge and to find employment for two of relatives.

“In my 35 years of experience, I’ve never seen anything like this,” US Attorney Rosa Emilia Rodriguez said at the time.

The judge pleaded not guilty and received a $50,000 bail.