After what seemed to be an endless wait for his position as be confirmed, Justice Walter Onnoghen was on Wednesday, March 1 unanimously confirmed by the Nigerian Senate as the substantive Chief Justice of Nigeria. His confirmation has made him the first southerner to be CJN since 1987 when Ayo Irikefe retired.
Below are nine things you should know about him;
1.) Walter Samuel Nkanu Onnoghen was born on December 22, 1950 in Kruiku Town, Biase Local Government, Cross Rivers state.
2.) He went to Presbyterian Primary School, Okurike, Biase, from 1959 to 1965 before moving 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.
3.) He started his career as a Pupil State Counsel in the Lagos State Ministry of Justice, in 1979, after which he ventured into private practice.
4.) Onnoghen returned to public service as Judge in the High Court of his native Cross River State in 1989.
5.) He joined the federal judicial service in 1998 as Justice of the Court Appeal, a position he held until 2005 when he was elevated to the Supreme Court.
6.) He has been a Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria since 2005, after been nominated by Olusegun Obasanjo.
7.) The Justice made history in Nigeria on April 11, 2014 when he, alongside some of his colleagues, made a landmark pronouncement in the case of two Igbo women, Gladys Ada Ukeje and Maria Nweke, who argued that they should have equal access as men to the inheritance of their parents.
The two women sued the men in their families – and finally got justice as the case moved from the lower to the highest courts in the land.
8.) He also upheld the death sentence meted out to Chukwuemeka Ezeugo, known as “Rev. King”, the general overseer of Christian Praying Assembly, who was accused of murdering a member of his church in 2006.
9.) Futhermore, it was Onnoghen, who annulled Yar’Adua’s election in December 2008 and called for a fresh one, after the then Gen. Buhari argued that the election was rigged.
However, his decision, alongside other colleagues, did not hold as they did not have the required number of Justices to pull the judgement through.
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