The Federal Judicial Service Commission has recommended a new Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, to the National Judicial Council for further recommendation to President Muhammadu Buhari.

He is Justice Walter Onnoghen, who is expected to replace Justice Mahmud Mohammed when his tenure ends on the attainment of the compulsory retirement age of 70, on November 10.

Sources within the NJC said the recommendation was made on Wednesday night, as part of efforts to ensure that the office of the CJN does not remain vacant at the end of Mahmud’s tenure.

Justice Onnoghen, born on December 22, 1950, is a native of Biase Local government area of Cross Rivers State.

After his primary education in his hometown, he proceeded to Ghana for his secondary and University education, graduating from the University of Ghana, Legon, in 1977, with a second Class Upper Division.

He attended the Nigerian Law School, Lagos, between 1977, and worked in the Lagos Justice ministry between 1978 and 1979.

Onnoghen became the Principal Partner and Head of Chamber of Walter Onneghen and Associates in Calabar in 1988 before he was appointed a high court judge, under the Cross Rivers state judiciary a year later.

In 1998, he was made a Justice of the Court of Appeal and was there till 2005 when he became Judge of the Supreme Court.

He is member of the Supreme Court’s body of benchers and a life bencher, as well as a fellow of the Chattered Institute of Arbitrators.