Editors Note; Originally published in Fij.ng written By Abimbola Abatta
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Nothing could have prepared Nigerians for the open confession by Adamu Bulkachuwa, a former senator representing Bauchi North, on how he encroached on the judicial independence of his wife, Zainab Adamu Bulkachuwa, a former President of the Federal Court of Appeal.
As seen in a video that threw Twitter into a frenzy, Bulkachuwa, an All Progressives Congress (APC) senator until November 2022 when he defected to the Peoples Democratic (PDP), openly admitted to influencing his wife’s decision when she was in office.
In a 41-second video recorded at the valedictory session of the senate on Saturday, Bulkachuwa said, “Particularly my wife, whose freedom and independence I encroached upon when she was in office, and she has been very tolerant and accepted my encroachment and extended her help to my colleagues.”
Has Senate President Ahmad Lawan not interrupted him, the senator might have spilled some more.
Justice Bulkachuwa was appointed as the Court of Appeal’s first female president in 2014, and she held the position until 2020 when she retired.
The Appeal Court handled a number of high-profile political cases during Bulkachuwa’s six-year presidency — the type for which her husband might have sought her help.
2016. EYITAYO JEGEDE VS JIMOH IBRAHIM FOR ONDO PDP GOV TICKET
In Ondo State, Bulkachuwa constituted a fresh three-man panel to hear the appeals on the disputes of the PDP ahead of the 2016 governorship election in Ondo State.
The move came after Bulkachuwa and the previously constituted panel members were accused of being compromised.
A federal high court had ordered the electoral body to drop Eyitayo Jegede as the PDP candidate and replace him with Jimoh Ibrahim, the candidate of another faction of the party.
Jegede instituted the case before the appeal court to challenge the high court’s judgment. But a loyalist of the Ibrahim faction filed a petition accusing the Bulkachuwa and the former panel of having been bribed to rule in favour of Jegede. The former president subsequently dismissed the alleged compromised panel.
However, the new panel, headed by Justice Ibrahim Salauwa, ordered INEC to replace Ibrahim with Jegede as the PDP candidate for that year’s election.
2017. EFCC VS SERVING JUDGES
In 2017, the Lagos State division of the appeal court ruled that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) lacked the powers to investigate or prosecute serving judges.
The court said the EFCC could only prosecute judicial officials who had been dismissed or sanctioned by the National Judicial Council (NJC).
The ruling came after the anti-graft agency filed a suit against Hyeladzira Nganjiwa, a judge of the Bayelsa Division of the Federal High Court, who was accused of unlawfully receiving $260,000 and N8.6 million through his bank account.
While reacting to the ruling, Wilson Uwujaren, the spokesperson of the agency, had described it as a dangerous precedent that had no basis in law. Although the EFCC appealed the judgement, it lost its appeal as the Supreme Court upheld the judgement just last year.
2018. PDP’s ADEMOLA ADELEKE VS APC’s GBOYEGA OYETOLA IN OSUN GOV ELECTION PETITION
Justice Bulkachuwa was still the Appeal Court president when the September 2018 governorship election of Osun State was appealed.
The initial election was declared inconclusive, leading to the conduct of a rerun. Ademola Adeleke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who earlier polled more votes than Gboyega Oyetola, his All Progressives Congress (APC) counterpart, was defeated in the rerun.
In March 2019, the election petition tribunal would declare PDP’s Adeleke the winner. However, the victory was shortlived as Oyetola filed an appeal to challenge it.
In the end, a five-member panel of the appeal court in Abuja led by Jummai Sankey nullified the judgement of the tribunal, thus declaring Oyetola, the candidate of Bulkachuwa’s husband’s party at the time, the governor.
Even when Adeleke approached the Supreme Court, the apex court validated the decision of the Court of Appeal.
2018. ELECTION TIMETABLE
In 2018, Bulkachuwa nullified the April 25 judgment of the Federal High Court, involving the national assembly.
The national assembly had proposed the Electoral Act (Amendment) Bill 2018, a move which would ensure that national assembly elections would hold first, followed by the governorship and state assembly elections while the presidential polls would come last.
In response, the Accord Party (AP) filed a suit to challenge the constitutionality of the amendment. And the Federal High Court had stopped the assembly from going ahead with the plan.
By nullifying the high court’s judgment, Bulkachuwa okayed the national assembly’s plan to re-order the sequence in which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted the 2019 general elections.
FIJ found that lawyers disagreed on the reordering of the election timetable. While some of them deemed it illegal and against the Constitution, others said there was nothing unconstitutional about it.
2019. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION PETITION TRIBUNAL
She was the chairman of the five-member tribunal on the 2019 presidential election petition. The petition sought to overturn the election of then President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) on the basis of electoral fraud.
The tribunal commenced sitting on May 8, but she had to step aside from the case on May 22 after her membership was questioned.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had filed an application, asking her to recuse herself on the grounds of the likelihood of bias due to her husband’s affiliation with the APC. She withdrew from the tribunal, and someone else took her place on the panel.
However, checks by FIJ showed that she did not appoint a replacement until June 10 after the PDP lawyers complained about the delay and the injury it would cause.
In September 2019, the tribunal dismissed the bid to overturn the election outcome and subsequently upheld Buhari’s victory as president.
The aggrieved opposition party proceeded to appeal the judgement of the tribunal, but the Supreme Court upheld the judgement and affirmed Buhari’s victory.
2019. HER HUSBAND’S APPEAL COURT CASE
In June 2019, the Court of Appeal in Abuja heard the suit seeking the sacking of Justice Bulkachuwa’s husband. At the time, her husband was the senator-elect for Bauchi North.
Senator Bulkachuwa’s looming sack followed his controversial victory at the Bauchi North Senatorial election.
The national leadership of the APC submitted Bulkachuwa’s name to INEC as its candidate for the actual election held in March 2019 instead of Usman Abubakar Tuggar.
Some APC stakeholders alleged that the party was trying to use Bulkachuwa as access to his wife, whose court would handle election petition cases.
Tuggar, who claimed to have won the APC primary election held the previous year, filed a case against the party’s alleged decision to submit Bulkachuwa’s name.
Tuggar lost at the federal high court, the appeal court and the supreme court as the three courts rejected his suit seeking to unseat Bulkachuwa.
‘APPEAL COURT JUSTICES HAVE INFUENCE ‘
Meanwhile, FIJ spoke with a Lagos-based lawyer who noted that presidents of the appeal court rarely sit on cases, but this does not stop them from influencing cases in the various divisions of the court.
According to the lawyer, who does not want to be named, Justice Bulkachuwa’s role would have bordered on assigning cases to other judges and then overseeing them.
“Although she might have taken up many cases before she became the president, the moment she became the president, she is like an overseer. Besides, she rarely presided over political matters because of her compromising family situation,” the lawyer said.
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