In the capital Abuja of Nigeria, a Supreme Court judge in has been charged in court with corruption. Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, was found with several passports, pleaded not guilty to 15 counts of fraud. He appeared along with seven other judges, who all denied the charges.
This combat against corruption was a campaign pledge of Nigeria’s Muhammadu Buhari who came to power in the year 2015. Nigeria’s security agency reported that they had seized $800,000 (£645,200) in cash in raids targeting senior judges suspected of corruption last month. Justice Ngwuta and his co-defendants were arrested in those raids.
The raids were not supported or appreciated by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) which accused the authorities of carrying out a ‘Gestapo-style’ operation. On the successful argument of NBA, the judicial regulatory body of Nigeria, the National Judicial Council (NJC), suspended the judges pending their trial.