Nigeria, June 15 -- When he opened the All Nigerian Judges Conference in February 2003, the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, Mohammed Lawal Uwais, who died on 6 June, six days short of his 89th birthday, lamented the fact that State Chief Judges in Nigeria "go begging for funds from their governors"; a practice pioneered by the military. It was part of a wider complaint about the historical legacies of judicial corrosion inherited from military rule. It also reflected the values of a man for whom judicial integrity was a way of life and an independent judiciary was a constitutional mandate of the highest salience.

In 1976, Mohammed Lawal Uwais secured a loan from the Nigerian Building Society to enable him build a modest home in Kaduna for...