Suspended CJN: CCT Convicts Onnoghen, to forfeit money, barred for 10 years

The Code of Conduct Tribunal, CCT, sitting in Abuja, yesterday, convicted the former Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Walter Onnoghen, on all the six-count charge the Federal Government preferred against him.

Justice Walter Onnoghen

The Danladi Umar-led three-man tribunal said that evidence of three witnesses that testified in the course of the trial, were not discredited by the defendant who was accused of failing to properly declare his assets, as well as operating five domiciliary foreign bank accounts. 

The CCT Chairman, Mr. Umar, who read the judgment, said: “The prosecution has discharged the onus placed on it beyond every iota of doubt. It is clear that the defendant was in clear breach of the code of conduct for public officers. 

The prosecution successfully established its case, and the defendant is accordingly convicted.” Handing its sentence after it declared the defendant guilty, the tribunal, ordered that he is “hereby removed from office as the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Chairman of the National Judicial Council, NJC, and the Federal Judicial Service Commission, FJSC. 

 “Secondly, the defendant is hereby banned from holding any public office for 10 years.” The tribunal held that Onnoghen’s failure to explain how he amassed “huge amounts of money in his accounts,” was an indication that the funds were acquired illegally. It ordered that the funds should be “confiscated, seized and forfeited to the Federal Government.”