Dipo Olowookere
By Dipo Olowookere
President Muhammadu Buhari has appointed and sworn-in Justice Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen as the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN).
This followed the retirement of Justice Mahmud Mohammed who clocked 70 on Thursday, November 10, 2016.
Performing the ceremony yesterday at the State House in Abuja, President Buhari urged the acting CJN use the position to bring about the much needed reforms in the judiciary.
Justice Onnoghen is remarkably the first southerner to be CJN since 1987 when Justice Ayo Irikefe retired.
He was born on December 22, 1950 in Biase, Cross Rivers state, Onnoghen will be in office till December 2020, barring any circumstances beyond his control.
Justice Onnoghen attended Presbyterian Primary School, Okurike, Biase, from 1959 to 1965 and move to Ghana for his secondary education from 1967 to 1972. He did his A’ Level at the Accra Academy in 1972 and studied law at the University of Ghana, Legon, from 1974 to 1977.
He returned to Lagos to enrol in the Nigerian Law School between 1977 and 1978, thereafter working as pupil state counsel, ministry of justice, in Ikeja, Lagos and Ogun States between 1978 and 1979.
Between 1979 and 1988, he was a partner in the law firm of Effiom Ekong and Company, in Calabar, after which he became principal partner and head of chamber of Walter Onneghen and Associates, Calabar.
Justice Onnoghen crossed from the bar to the bench in 1989 as he was appointed a high court judge by the Cross Rivers state judiciary. He moved on in 1990 to become the chairman, Cross Rivers State Armed Robbery and Fire Arms Tribunal. He was there for three years.
He was appointed chairman of the Failed Bank Tribunal, Ibadan zone, in 1998, from where he moved on to become a justice of the court of appeal.
