President Muhammadu Buhari will swear in Justice Olukayode Ariwoola as the acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) on Monday. Buhari’s digital media aide Bashir Amhad disclosed this in a tweet.
Justice Ariwoola will replace Justice Tanko Mohammed who resigned from his position as CJN on Monday.
He was appointed a Justice of the Supreme Court in 2011. He was a Justice of the Court of Appeal between 2005 and 2011 after having been elevated from the State High Court of Oyo State.
Justice Ariwoola was first appointed a Judge of the Superior Court of record in Oyo State in 1992 from private legal practice.
Before his elevation to the Supreme Court, he served as Justice of the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, Enugu, and Lagos Divisions.
Last week, 14 justices of the Supreme Court had written him a letter to lament the decrepit state of affairs in the apex court.
In the leaked letter, the Justices accused the CJN of refusing to address the issues despite drawing his attention to them. They complained of a lack of residential accommodation and vehicles at the court.
The justices further accused the CJN of gallivanting with his “spouse, children and personal staff,” while not allowing them to travel with an assistant on foreign trips.
The justices decried the lack of legal research assistants, despite the magnitude of cases being adjudicated.
On erratic electricity supply, the justices said they have been confined to work between the “hours of 8 a.m and 4 p.m daily, for lack of diesel,” after they were notified of the development by the Supreme Court’s Chief Registrar, Hajo Bello.
