Tinubu Reportedly Considers 71-Year-Old Retiree As ICPC Chair

A 71-year-old former Justice of the Supreme Court, Abdu Aboki is being reportedly considered by President Bola Tinubu as the chairman of the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC).

Aboki retired from the Supreme Court after clocking the mandatory retirement age of 70 on 5 August 2022.

Presidency sources, who spoke with Premium Times on condition of anonymity said Tinubu has penned down Aboki’s name to replace the incumbent ICPC chair, Bolaji Owasanoye, whose five-year tenure remains about six months.

If Mr Aboki is eventually named as the next ICPC chair, his appointment will be a return to the tradition of picking the head of the commission from among relatively aged, retired jurists of the appellate courts.

Mustapha Akanbi, who voluntarily retired as the President of the Court of Appeal in 1999, was 68 when he was appointed the pioneer chairperson of the commission in 2000. He served out his five-year tenure in 2005.

He was succeeded by Emmanuel Ayoola, who retired as a Justice of the Supreme Court when he clocked 70 in October 2003.

Ayoola was appointed the chair of the commission in September 2005, about a month before his 72nd birthday.

A break with the convention of appointing aged, retired jurists, and turning to a relatively younger generation to pick the head of the commission, Ekpo Nta, a lawyer who had held various political appointments, succeeded Ayoola on 17 October 2012 at age 60.

The incumbent chair, Owasanoye, a lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, was 55 years old when he was appointed as the chair of ICPC on 4 February 2019.

Born on 15 May 1963, the professor of Law will still be under 60 by the time his tenure as ICPC chair ought to end on 4 February 2024.

Aboki’s appointment will deviate from the new trend of showing a preference for the younger generation to head the anti-corruption agency.

To be qualified to be an ICPC chairperson, the candidate must be qualified to be a judge of Nigeria’s superior courts of record.

Section 4 of the law establishing the anti-graft agency, the ICPC Act 2000 says, “The (ICPC) chairman shall be a person who has held or is qualified to hold office as a judge of a superior court of record in Nigeria.”

The law in section 6 further says, “the chairman shall and other members of the commission shall be persons of proven integrity,” and shall be appointed by the president subject to Senate confirmation.

This means that any person with “proven integrity” and who has been called to the Nigerian Bar for at least 10 years, the minimum qualification to be appointed a judge of a superior court of record in Nigeria, is qualified to be the ICPC chairperson.

According to Premium Times, Aboki is qualified for the position.