From August 28, 2011, there would be a pressing need for the President, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan to appoint a new Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) as the incumbent CJN, Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu would have to bow out from the nation’s judiciary having attained the mandatory retirement age of 70.

Justice Katsina Alu, who is the head of the judicial branch of the government of Nigeria, assumed office 30th day of December 2009 as the 11th Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

Under Section 291 (1), the constitution provides that “a judicial officer appointed to the Supreme Court or the Court of Appeal may retire when he attains the age of 65 years and he shall cease to hold office when he attains the age of 70 years.”

Should Justice Katsina Alu vacate his position on the 28th day of August, the swearing in of the new CJN may be done on 29th, either in acting capacity or in substantive capacity, this is because as of now it cannot be confirmed whether his name has been forwarded to the Federal Judicial Service Commission, the National Judicial Council or to the National Assembly.

Already, there is a succession plan in the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal which makes it so easy to determine the next CJN. Section 230 (4) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (CFRN) provides that where the office of the CJN was vacant, “the President shall appoint the most senior Justice of the Supreme Court to perform the function.

After Justice Katsina Alu, the two most senior Justices in the apex court are Justice Dahiru Musdapher, who is going to be an interesting CJN because of his enormous wealth of experience and Justice Aloma Mariam Muktar, who interestingly is Nigeria’s first female Justice of the Supreme Court.

Justice Dahiru Musdapher was born 14th July, 1942 at Babura Local Government Area of Jigawa State and has a lot of experience. Experience in the sense that “he has seen it all.”

The erudite and pragmatic jurist of high repute in his search for knowledge attended University of London School of Oriental and African Studies; he enrolled at the Inns of Court and was called to the English Bar in 1967. He thereafter enrolled at the Nigerian Law School in 1967 and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1968, the same year with Justice Katsina Alu.

Between 1968 and 1976, Justice Dahiru Musdapher had a successful private practice before he was appointed the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Kaduna State where he served meritoriously from 1976 to 1979 when he was appointed as a Judge of the High Court of Kano State.

He attained the peak of his career when he was appointed as the Chief Judge (CJ) Kano State from 1979 to 1985.

In 1985 he was elevated to the Court of Appeal and rose to the apex court as Justice of the Supreme Court in 2003.

An iconic figure, lawyers who spoke with Daily Trust believed that for him to attain the peak is not accidental. The lawyers said that “there is no success that is accidental.”

It was gathered that Dahiru is someone that seeks to do justice at all time, without adherence to technicalities and that is the mode of the global trend in the judiciary. Justice must be done not based on technicalities but on substantial justice and that is even the concept of equity. Equity looks not at the form but at the substance.

What this means, according to Chief Joshua Alobo, a constitutional lawyer is, “that the judiciary will witness a lot of innovation, and good enough by the express provision in Section 285 of the 1999 and the jurisdictional power of the Supreme Court in election petitions emanating from gubernatorial matters from the tribunals; there is going to be some high level activism in the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court must re-enact the golden era - the era of Justice Kayode Eso, Karibi Whyte, of Philip Nnamani - the era when, when you read the judgments you would think that you were in the realm of the celestial, so that era would be witnessed in the next four months based on the provision enshrined in Section 285.”

However, some lawyers do not want to comment on Justice Dahiru Musdapher due to his alleged role in the Sokoto State election petition saga, but others have added that he only has less than one year (since he is going to retire July 14, 2012 because of the mandatory 70 years retirement age) in office. Then we would have Justice Aloma Mariam Mukthar, who hopefully would be the first female CJN as Nigerians pray earnestly that God will preserve her life because she is an epitome of hard work and elegance.

Justice Aloma Mariam Mukhtar was born 20th November, 1944. She attended St. George Primary School, Zaria, St. Batholomews School, Wusasa, Zaria, Rossholme School for Girls, East Brent, Somersets, England, Reading Technical College, Reading, Berkshire England, Gibson and Weldon College of Law and was called to the English Bar in Absentia in November, 1966. Justice Aloma Mukhtar was called to the Nigerian Bar on June 26, 1967.

She worked as Pupil State Counsel, Ministry of Justice, Northern Nigeria, 1967, Office of the Legal Draftsman, Interim Common Services Agency, Magistrate Grade I, North Eastern State Government, 1971, Chief Registrar, Kano State Government Judiciary, 1973, Judge of the High Court of Kano State, 1977-1987, Justice of the Court of Appeal, 1987-1993, Presiding Justice of the Court of Appeal, 1993-2005, Justice of the Supreme Court, June 2005 to date.