The National Judicial Council, recently jolted by recent arrests of judges and strong accusations of corruption in the judiciary, has in a reviewed Code of Conduct for judicial officers, mandated judges handling sensitive and high profile matters – such as election petitions – to declare their assets before and after delivering judgement on such matters.

To underscore the seriousness of the new thinking within the NJC, the body has constituted a ten-man Judicial Ethics Committee and saddled it with the responsibility of overhauling the extant Code of Conduct for judicial officers in the country.

The NJC has come under heavy scrutiny since after the night of October 7 and wee hours of October 8 when operatives of the Department of State Services raided houses of select judges across the country and arrested seven of them during the raid. The DSS said it recovered loads of cash in local and foreign currencies in the houses of the judges.

The NJC swiftly condemned the raid, describing it as an attempt to cow the judiciary. The Presidency denies that it was intended to cow the judiciary in any way. It says it was part of an ongoing effort to clean up the country’s institutions which it said have all been mired in corruption for decades.

Three of the arrested judges have pushed back, denying any wrong doing. They claim their ordeal is personal vendetta against them by three ministers in President Buhari’s government who they claim harbour grudges for events of the past. The ministers named so far are Minister of Transport Rotimi Amaechi, Minister of Science and Technology Ogbonnaya Onu and Minister of Justice Abubakar Malami.

Initially, the body of lawyers in the country, the Nigerian Bar Association, had condemned the raid. But it later recanted, insisting through its President Abubakar Mahmoud that NJC suspends the accused judges until their names are cleared or otherwise.

NBA’s later stand was a heavy blow on the NJC which insisted it was not going to suspend the judges. It said the body can only act on the allegations if the DSS forwarded to it petitions on the accused judges as well as documentary evidence backing up the claim that the judicial officers were corrupt.

The latest attempt at self-reform by the NJC must be a last-minute effort to save the third arm of government from interference by the executive. The move may have come too late.