3-man panel to recommend punishment for Justice Isa Salami

By Ikechukwu Nnochiri
ABUJA—After due consideration of the investigative report of the Justice Umaru Abdullahi-led probe panel, which allegedly indicted the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isa Salami of perjury, the National Judicial Council, NJC, yesterday, charged a three-man panel of justices with the responsibility of recommending a befitting punishment for him.

The legal body had concluded a two-day ad-hoc meeting it convened with a view to appraising the final report of the five-man panel that was given the mandate of ascertaining the veracity of allegations of corruption levelled against the duo of the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu and the PCA, Justice Salami. It, yesterday, ordered the new panel to furnish it with the recommended sanction before August 9.

Though the NJC, in its bid to protect members of the recommendation panel from undue extraneous influences, decided to shroud their identity in secrecy, a source privy to the meeting, who confided in Vanguard on grounds of anonymity, said Justice Salami has since called their bluff.

The initial probe panel headed by Justice Abdullahi, who coincidentally was a former President of the Appeal Court, was said to have indicted the present Appeal Court President, Salami, of lying against the CJN under oath, an offence that is classified as high-classed perjury.

Salami, had in an affidavit he personally deposed to before a Federal High Court in Abuja, alleged that the CJN pressurised him to compromise standard in the Sokoto State Gubernatorial Election Petition Appeal Tribunal (Appeal Tribunal) that was eventually decided in favour of incumbent Governor Aliyu Wammako, amidst judicial controversies.