FOR JUSTICE REGINA NWODO – A SOCIAL JUSTICE ACTIVIST
(Being the Speech delivered by Femi Falana, SAN at the Night of Tributes held in honour of the Honourable Justice Regina Obiageli Nwodo J.C.A at the Sports Centre, Enugu, Enugu State on Wednesday, September 25, 2013.)
We are assembled here tonight to pay our last respect to the Honourable Justice Regina Obiageli Nwodo, who until her transition was a Justice of the Court of Appeal. We are gathered here to celebrate her sterling qualities, commitment to justice, dedication to duty and contribution to the promotion of human rights and social justice, constitutionalism and rule of law in Nigeria.
The late Justice Regina Nwodo was born on November 1, 1958 in Onitsha, Anambra State into the illustrious family of the Late Sir Joseph Ozoemena Nwankwu, a pioneer industrialist and multi-billionaire. She attended the Queen of the Rosary College, Onitsha and studied law at the prestigious University of Middlesex in the United Kingdom. She obtained her LL.B degree in 1982 and was called to the Nigeria Bar in 1983. In 1986 she became a Magistrate. Four years later she returned to the United Kingdom for further studies. She was admitted to the London School of Economics and Political Science, University of London where she obtained the LL.M degree.
The Magistrate was appointed a judge of the Enugu State High Court in 1998. On account of her marriage to John Nnia Nwodo Esq. of the Nwodo political dynasty in Enugu State Justice Nwodo decided to transfer her service to the Federal High Court in 2000 in a bid order to ward off political pressures. Her first posting was the ever busy Lagos judicial division of the Federal High Court where she handled some landmark cases. One of such cases was that of Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Billi Folahan & Ors. (2001) 2 FHLR 10 where Nwodo J held that a police officer who is a lawyer could prosecute a criminal case at the Federal High Court. Although the decision was set aside by the Court of Appeal her reasoning and conclusions were affirmed by the Supreme Court.
I had the opportunity of appearing before Justice Nwodo for the first time in 2000. On that occasion I found that her dazzling beauty was captivating. But I quickly noticed a very brilliant judge who was at home with the law. In spite of her rich background and solid educational background she exuded humility and patience which disarmed lawyers and fellow judges. Justice Nwodo was gentle but firm. If she came late to court for any reason whatsoever she was always of full of apologies. Notwithstanding that Justice Nwodo was born with a silver spoon in her mouth she realized that the poor and the downtrodden are victims of institutionalized injustice in a capitalist society like Nigeria. As a dogged advocate of human rights she detested illegal detention of innocent people by law enforcement agencies, set at liberty many detainees and awarded damages in deserving cases. I admired her as I later found that there was a common chord binding us together in the pursuit of justice for the underprivileged people in the society.
While attending an international human rights conference in Johannesburg, South Africa in 2004 a case decided by her was critically dissected in one of the sessions. My respect for her was enhanced as it was generally agreed at the conference that she had opened a new vista in human rights jurispudence in Africa. That was the case of Festus Odafe & Ors. v Attorney-General of the Federation (2004) AHLR 205 in which four prison inmates who were HIV/AIDS patients sought for medical treatment and relocation from the Port Harcourt prisons to a designated government hospital for proper medical attention. In her epochal judgment Justice Nwodo declared that the continuous detention of the applicants without giving them adequate medical treatment amounted to torture pursuant to Article 16 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
In upholding the submissions of the Applicants’ Counsel, Wale Fapounda Esq, the current Attorney-General of Ekiti State, Justice Nwodo stated that “A dispute concerning socio-economic rights such as the right to medical attention requires the court to evaluate state policy and give judgment consistent with the Constitution… However, the statutes have to be complied with and the state has a responsibility to all the inmates in prison, regardless of the offence involved as in the instant case where the state has wronged the applicants by not arraigning them for trial before a competent court within a reasonable time and they have been in custody for not less than two years suffering from an illness.”
Influenced by the Odafe case in which the social economic right to adequate medical care was upheld by a Nigerian judge I sued the Federal Government at the Federal High Court in 2011 to justify the legal validity of the discriminatory policy of sending top public officers abroad for medical treatment while other citizens are allowed to suffer and die from preventable diseases in the country’s ill-equipped hospitals. Although the presiding judge, Adah J. (as he then was) struck out the case on the ground that the right to adequate medical care is not justiciable under Chapter II of the Constitution I have anchored my appeal against the verdict on the interpretation of Article 16 of the African Charter by the Late Justice Nwodo.
Convinced that corruption has stultified the development of the country Nwodo JCA never allowed people accused of corruption to escape prosecution. Thus, at the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt she had no difficulty in dismissing the ex parte application for an order of interim injunction to restrain the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission from arresting, investigating and prosecuting a former governor. In Federal Republic of Nigeria v. Kenny Martins & Ors. (2012) 14 NWLR (PT 1320) 287, Nwodo JCA set aside the ruling of the trial judge (Mohammed Talba J.) that there was no case to answer by the accused persons in the charge of criminal breach of trust of the alleged missing sum of N1.2 billion out of the N7 billion police equipment fund. Consequently, she ordered a retrial and directed the FCT Chief Judge to reassign the case to another judge of the Court.
In Dododo v. E.F.C.C. (2013) 1 NWLR (PT 1336) 468 the Appellant requested the EFCC and the ICPC to investigate serious allegations of corruption made against an ex governor. As there was no reply to the petition the Appellant prayed the federal high court for mandamus to compel both anti-graft bodies to publish their report and prosecute the suspect. The case was struck out for want of locus standi by the trial court. On Appeal Nwodo JCA held that the anti-graft agencies could not be compelled to prosecute anyone. However, she expanded the narrow ambit of locus standi in the case of Abraham Adesanya v. The President (1981) All NLR 1 when she declared that “the African Charter provision encompassing public rights should be so construed broadly to vest locus on a tax payer who is interested in good governance and shows such interest by writing a statutory body to complain on misappropriation of public funds”. Accordingly, Nwodo JCA upheld the right of the Appellant to the investigation report in accordance with Article 9 of the African Charter which guarantees unimpeded access to information.
Justice Nwodo made her mark in other areas of the law as clearly borne out in her well researched judgments. She administered law with human kindness and dispensed justice with compassion. Her guiding philosophy can be found in Idegwu v. The State (2013) 24 WRN 84 where she held that “there is equally strong need for the court to maintain regularity in attaining justice while interpreting the provisions of the law… when discretion is exercised it must be judicially and judiciously”. By sheer dint of hard work and knowledge of the law Justice Nwodo had a meteoric rise from the Magistracy to the Court of Appeal. Throughout her career on the bench Justice Nwodo was never linked, even remotely, with corrupt practices or abuse of judicial power.
Even though some of her judgments were upturned on appeal the errors identified by the appellate courts in such decisions were never attributed to ignorance of the law, undue influence or corruption. In a fitting tribute paid to her at Enugu last week Justice I.I. Umezulike JCA (rtd) disclosed that in 2006 Justice Nwodo “was adjudged by a Committee of the National Judicial Council as the most productive judge in the entire country. She was then a judge of the Federal High Court sitting in Port Harcourt. Her elevation to the Court of Appeal was solely on merit. It has no geographical flavor. And she rose to the challenge of that Court with extra-ordinary strength, grace, dignity, intellect, honesty and elegance.”
Whenever I met her darling husband during her life time I always requested him to continue to encourage and support her as the society needs good and courageous judges like her. On June 3, 2013, I appeared before the Abuja division of the Court of Appeal presided over by Justice Nwodo. She radiated her characteristic charm and vivacity. On the conclusion of my matter she wished me a safe return to Lagos and urged me to keep up the struggle for human rights and social justice. I thanked her and assured her of my unwavering commitment to our shared values and concern for the society. I was therefore flabbergasted and shocked when I learnt on August 6, 2013 that Justice Nwodo had passed on having succumbed to cancer. I was reliably informed that she had confronted the dangerous disease with uncommon courage for over a decade.
Two months before her transition she had urged me to remain steadfast in the fight against injustice. I never knew it was a farewell wish from a comrade in the struggle for an egalitarian society. No doubt, Honourable Justice Nwodo will be sorely missed by family members and the legal profession. But they should take solace in the fact that through her judgments many of which are landmark pronouncements she lives forever in the law reports and in the hearts of those whose lives she touched. As a devout catholic that she was in her life time I wish Justice Regina Nwodo requiescat in pace.