5th May, 2023
By Kazeem Ugbodaga
President-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu has said his incoming administration will fight corruption among judges by ensuring that they do not live in squalor.
Tinubu spoke while inaugurating the Magistrates’ Court Complex built by Governor Nyesom Wike’s administration and named after a former Chief Judge of the state, Justice Iche Ndu (retd.).
The president-elect praised Wike for what he had done for the judiciary in Rivers, but said that he would take a different angle to what Wike had done, which is fighting corruption, “and you have been contributing very well to this.”
According to Tinubu, “You don’t expect your judges to live in squalor, to operate in squalor, to dispense justice in squalor. This is part of the changes that are necessary in our policy think tank.”
He said his administration must fight corruption and would definitely must look at the other side of the coin.
“If you don’t want your judges to be corrupt, you got to pay attention to their welfare. If you want fair dispensation of justice, you don’t want them to operate in hazardous conditions. Let’s think value for value.
“If I don’t have consumer credit and you want me to pay for the car I needed at once, N5m, N6m, driving temptation to corruption,” he added.
Tinubu added that “But if you have consumer credit, then that will reduce the propensity to corruption. We don’t want our judges to play foul, to compromise justice. Not just the books, but do something. And I promise you, we are going to review all of these in our policy think tank.”