Justice Mahmud Mohammed Nominated As Next Chief Judge Of The Federation..

The National Judicial Council (NJC) was supposed to meet  today in Abuja to deliberate on the recommendation of Justice Mahmud Mohammed to President Goodluck Jonathan as the next Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN).
The incumbent CJN, Justice Mariam Aloma Mukhtar,  is billed to bow out of the judiciary November 20 on attaining the mandatory retirement age of 70.
The meeting is coming on the heels of Federal Judicial Service Commission's (FJSC's) nomination of Mahmud to the NJC last week as required by the Constitution.

The NJC is to ratify and recommend Mahmud to President Jonathan who will in turn forward his name to the Senate for confirmation, after which he would be sworn in by the President.

The appointment of a person to the office of CJN, according to the constitution shall be made by the President on the recommendation of the National Judicial Council (NJC), subject to confirmation of such appointment by the Senate.

Justice Mohammed who is the most senior Justice of the Supreme Court after the CJN hails from Taraba State, and he is the first of the three names recommended to be the NJC.

Justice Mohammed is expected to spend two years as the CJN and it is during his tenure that the apex court may likely decide whether or not President Jonathan is eligible to contest in the 2015 presidential election.

Born on November 10, 1946, Justice Mohammed studied law at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria from 1967-1970 where he obtained a prize as the second best participant in the 1968 ABU Zaria faculty of Law moot court competition.

He was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1971 and had been in active law practice as a legal practitioner in Nigeria in the justice ministries of defunct North-Eastern and Gongola State.

From 1981 to 1983 he was Attorney General and Commissioner of Justice in defunct Gongola State. In 1985 he was appointed a judge in the High Court, Gongola State and rose to Acting Chief Judge (CJ) in the State.

In 1992 he was preferred as the substantive CJ Taraba State before he was elevated to a Justice of the Court of Appeal between 1992 and 2002.

He became a Justice of the Supreme Court in June 2005 and he has been the deputy chairman of the NJC from July 2012 till date.