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Joseph Wowo’s Cry for Justice
Obinna Chima
Since July 2013, when Justice Joseph Wowo, a Nigerian prosecutor, was unceremoniously dismissed from his high-ranking position of Chief Justice of The Gambia by former President Yahya Jammeh, he has maintained his cry for justice.
He is calling on President Bola Tinubu, who is the Chairman of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), to look into his plight and address what he described as the unjust treatment he received in The Gambia.
Delta State-born Wowo, claims that his ousting was a blatant violation of the concepts of justice and fairness.
Before he became a Chief Justice, he was employed as a Judge in the High Court of The Gambia, and from the High Court, he was elevated to the Gambian Court of Appeal. While at the Gambian Court of Appeal, he became the President, from where he was elevated to the Supreme Court shortly in 2013.
The University of Nigeria, Nsukka graduate joined The Gambian judiciary in 2000, and became the Chief Justice of the country in June 2013, at the age of 47, and was removed from office 29 days later by Yahya Jammeh, over an allegation of corruption.
Wowo, however, insisted that the allegations were all cooked-up charges, saying the allegations of corruption leveled against him were set up just to ease him out of the system.
He stressed that when he became Chief Justice, his goal was to clean the judiciary of corruption because “I had zero tolerance for corruption. I wanted everyone to know that you still have very decent Nigerians.” This, he claimed, was partly responsible for his ordeals.
Today, he is appealing to the Nigerian government, through the Presidency to look into the matter. According to him, a former Nigerian High Commissioner to The Gambia last year wrote several letters to the Gambian Foreign Affairs Ministry, but they ignored all her letters.
He said a top official in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in The Gambia reliably informed him that they don’t want to pay him his entitlements, which include a $200,000 awarded to him by the ECOWAS court, as well as his outstanding salaries and gratuities.
“President Tinubu can play a lot of role in this injustice. I am appealing to him to talk directly to The Gambian President so that they can pay me all my allowances and gratuities and the $200,000 from the ECOWAS court.
“This judgement has been since 2019, and we have written so many letters. I have written to the Nigerians in the Diaspora Commission; their legal department wrote to The Gambian Government and still nothing came out of it. I wrote another letter to Nigeria’s ninth Senate in the last administration when Ovie Omo-Agege was the Deputy Senate President. They held a plenary session and nothing came out of it. So, it was like I was abandoned,” he said.
His Removal
Speaking in an interview with THISDAY, Wowo, whose voice trembled as tears welled up in his eyes narrated how on a Saturday morning, in July 2013, some security agencies came to his house to inform him that he had been removed as Chief Justice, “without any notice or to even inform me of my offense, because I was at work the previous day, which was a Friday, until the close of work.”
According to him, “It was later that I was made to understand that The Gambian Bar Association, which was then headed by Lookman Faraj and the Former Attorney General, Amie Joof, connived with the Secretary to the Government.
“They said they didn’t want a Nigerian to be their Chief Justice, that they wanted a Gambian to be the Chief Justice, that was the bone of contention. But instead of saying so, they went ahead and alleged corruption against me.
“But as a Nigerian, I wanted to clear my name, that was why I did not leave The Gambia immediately and also I decided to clear my country’s name. I stayed back in the country for about three months. I wrote a petition that I wanted to know the reason I was removed and they said they were investigating. “They investigated and found out that everything was a lie, but Yahya Jammeh was so ashamed to announce that all they alleged against me were lies.
“So, because he refused to announce, I held a press conference stating that at no time was I found wanting and at no time was I issued any query. I told the press that all were lies and that the President knew that, and that I needed an apology from the President of The Gambia and The Gambian Bar Association.”
Wowo, who insisted that at no time was he involved in corruption during his reign as Chief Justice, argued that another Nigerian, Justice Akomaye Agim, who was the first Chief Justice of The Gambia, was also treated poorly throughout his tenure in the West African country.
“I replaced Justice Agim and he can attest to what I am saying. They fought him because he was a Nigerian. I did not regret that I held that press conference where I stated clearly that everything was a lie and that President Yahya Jammeh should apologise to me.
“But instead of the President apologising to me, because of his ego, he declared publicly that he was going to destroy me and my career. To me, I felt you cannot do anything to somebody when there was no offense.
“Up till now, no criminal investigation stated that I did anything wrong and I was charged with a frivolous offense. As a lawyer and a judge, I know that a criminal case cannot commence or end without a criminal indictment from an investigation.
“They just formulated charges against me. Even the judgement I got from ECOWAS stated all that. To make matters worse, The Gambian government used a judge who was undergoing corruption charges under me to try the matter – one Justice Emmanuel Nkea.
“When the matter started, we told the Justice to recuse himself because he was not the only Judge in The Gambia, but they refused and at the end of the day, he said I was sentenced. I made efforts to appeal the judgment, but they frustrated every effort I made.
“After they said I was convicted on frivolous charges, one of which was that I was parading myself as the acting president of The Gambia. So, I moved the case to the ECOWAS court in 2019. I waited that long because I thought the Court of Appeal would do the right thing.
“We went to the Supreme Court, by then President Yahya Jammeh had been overthrown. I was told that the Ministry of Justice in The Gambia told the Supreme Court that Justice Wowo did not do anything wrong. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) then happened to be a Nigerian, one Abubakar.
“He told The Gambian Supreme Court then that I did not do anything wrong and that they were not filing anything before the Supreme Court. But still, a set of persons in The Gambia refused, just because of that anti-Nigerian sentiment.”
Continuing, Wowo pointed out that “Because of pressure from the Nigerian High Commission then and the United States Government, they said they have granted me pardon. But again, I wasn’t happy because Mrs. Esther Audu, who was the High Commissioner in The Gambia in 2013, told me that they had already informed President Goodluck Jonathan, who was Nigeria’s President then, about the injustice being meted to me.
“I was surprised President Jonathan didn’t do anything about it. So, the moment the Supreme Court convicted me, I went straight to the ECOWAS court, because my rights were seriously violated. Firstly, there was no investigation into the case; secondly, the judge that tried the matter was someone that I commenced corruption charges against.
“How can you convict someone without any form of wrongdoing? All these were just because President Yahya Jammeh felt I confronted him by holding a press conference after my removal and he vowed to destroy me.
“So, when we went to the ECOWAS court, the ECOWAS court was furious that someone could be convicted without any indictment or investigation and also that the judge who tried me was undergoing a corruption trial before me and they still allowed him to convict me.
“The ECOWAS Court first ruled that my removal was unlawful and that all that they did to me was unconstitutional and a violation of my right to a fair trial. The court then awarded me $200,000 and said they should assess the amount I spent on the case (all my transportation from the United States to the court throughout the trial), and pay me.
“Since 2019 when the ECOWAS gave the ruling, up till now they have not paid. But all The Gambians that had victory before the ECOWAS Court have been paid their money. Persons like Musa Saidykhan was paid on December 16, 2010; Ousainou Darboe, Kemmesseng Jammeh, Femi Peters, Lamin Dibba, Lamin Jatta, Yahyah Bah, Baboucarr Camara, and Fakeba Colley, were all paid on January 2020.
“Again, based on the fact that the ECOWAS Court said I was wrongfully removed, that I was entitled to all my salaries, allowances and gratuities, I wrote to The Gambian government, but they still refused to pay. I remember one of the Judges, Justice Naceesay Salla-Wadda, who was unlawfully removed when a new government came in, she wrote to them and was reinstalled and all her outstanding salaries and allowances were paid to her, just because she is a Gambian. But in my case that has a court order stating that my removal was unlawful, I have written to The Gambian government, but they still refused to pay me.”
Finally, he is appealing to ECOWAS and the Nigerian government to step into the matter and save his career, saying, I lost a job that I was supposed to get in Trinidad because they said I had been convicted. That was because they didn’t know the basis of it.”
