About eight more senior judges in Nigeria are being investigated for corruption and may be arrested anytime from now.
The eight are part of 15 judges that are being investigated by the State Security Service for alleged corrupt practices.
Already, seven judges were arrested between Friday night and Saturday morning in raids that have been condemned by lawyers and Nigerian rights groups.
The seven judges arrested and currently in detention at the SSS office are Justice Inyang Okoro and Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court; Adeniyi Ademola of the Federal High Court, Abuja; Kabir Auta of the Kano High Court; Muazu Pindiga of the Gombe High Court, Mohammed Tsamiya of the Court of Appeal in Ilorin, and the Chief Judge of Enugu State, I. A. Umezulike.
Messrs Umezulike, Auta, and Tsamiya had earlier been recommended for sack by the National Judicial Council for alleged corrupt activities.
The seven arrested judges were still at the SSS office on Sunday evening.
Apart from the judges, at least three members of the registry staff of relevant courts have also been invited for questioning by the SSS and have made “relevant statements,” a source said.
On Saturday, the security service gave reasons why it arrested the judges.
In a statement, the SSS said it also recovered various sums of money from those arrested including over N93 million in cash as well as over $530,000 in cash.
The mode of arrest of the seven judges has led to intense criticism from Nigerians including by the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), and foremost rights group, Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP), which asked President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately order the release of the judges.
