Justice Olukayode Ariwoola, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, has revealed that the Supreme Court currently has the smallest number of Justices in Nigerian history.
He made this announcement during the retirement celebration of Justice Musa Dattijo Mohammed, who reached the mandatory retirement age of 70.
Ariwoola explained that the Supreme Court is currently functioning with only 10 Justices, despite having a significant backlog of cases to address. Nevertheless, he expressed his commitment to increasing the number of Justices on the Court’s bench to handle the workload.
He was quoted saying, “With Justice Musa Dattijo leaving us today after the retirement of Hon. Justice Adamu Amina Augie a few weeks ago, we are now left with just 10 Justices on the Supreme Court Bench; being the lowest we have ever had in the contemporary history of the Court.
“However, I can confidently assure all the litigant public that efforts are in top gear to get on board a sizeable number of Justices to boost our rank and complement the tremendous effort we have been investing in the business of the Court.”
Paying tributes to the retired Justice, the Chief Justice continued: “My Lord Hon. Justice Musa Dattijo Muhammad in whose honour we assemble here today, is an epitome of jurisprudential finesse; an insuperable lion with an irrepressible voice in the temple of justice.
“We are here to identify with an accomplished jurisprudential iconoclast that has offered the best of his intellect to the advancement of the legal profession through his several years of unblemished and incontrovertible adjudications at different levels of courts in Nigeria.
“His Lordship has, by all standards, made an incisive inroad into the revered history books of the Nigerian judiciary as that gallant and eminent Justice at the Supreme Court bench who inviolably held sway in the discharge of his judicial functions.
“As second-in-command in the hierarchy of the Supreme Court, my Lord, Justice Dattijo, skillfully aided and supported me virtually in every sphere of administration. He is a specimen of hard work, industry, discipline and high moral rectitude.”