Buhari’s
Impeachment Of Sanctity & Independence Of Judiciary In Nigeria:
A Call For
Court Boycott By NBA & Ors
By
Southeast
Based Coalition Of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)
(Onitsha
Nigeria, 6th January 2016)-It is no
longer a subject of grammatical, political, legal and public debate whether or
not Nigeria of Buhari’s civilian presidency
is tyrannical-cum-dictatorial; as the country is fully back in
dictatorship or chained democracy. Nigerians
should also not lose sleep or express surprises over recent or ongoing public
antics and pro-dictatorial comments of the Attorney General of the Federation,
Mallam Abubakar Malami, SAN, and the likes of Prof Itse Sagay, SAN and Senator
Ali Ndume, Senate Majority Leader; rather all Nigerians particularly the
Nigerian Bar Association and other democratic forces should concern themselves
sleeplessly with how to rise up endlessly against the resurrected dictatorship
and its destructive forces.
It must
be clearly understood by all Nigerians and members of the international
community that most, if not all the political appointees under Buhari’s chained
democratic government; both ministerial and non ministerial, were
appointed for the purpose of promoting and protecting tyrannical policies and
conducts of his administration. Apart from being beneficiaries of sectional
lopsidedness and political settlements, the appointees
were strictly scrutinized and tutored by the country’s secret police of
Buhari’s armpit purse in the art of tyrannical policies and
conducts. Most, if not all of them are also beneficiaries of Nigeria’s
political woes of the recent past. In the country’s coercive establishments,
blood thirsty senior officers and semi-cannibals were carefully selected and
appointed into the headship of the country’s strategic security forces.
Totality of these is agents of tyranny or
dictatorship. Other agents of tyranny working or sympathetic to the
dictatorial government of Muhammadu Buhari can be found within the Nigerian Bar
Association, the Southwest based Civil Society Organizations, the print,
electronic and online media, mainly, if not mostly of Southwest section
particularly those established with illicit or stolen public funds and owned by
political profligates.
Our coordinating partner: Intersociety had
severally argued expertly and seminally that the emergence of dictatorship
or tyranny and its sustenance under a civilian administration, is not the sole
activity of a dictator or tyrant; but a hatched conspiratorial project
involving other dictatorial or tyrannical elements. It further observed that
the first victims of dictatorship are the judiciary and the legislature,
leading to instant death of rule of law, separation of powers and checks and
balances.
According to Intersociety, where there are
formidable and non conformist rights based CSOs and other members of the
“attentive public” (media, religious bodies, occupational and professional
bodies, etc); dictatorship meets its waterloo and irreparably nailed to coffin.
That is
to say that the emergence of Buhari’s dictatorship in Nigeria has thrown up two
forces of opposite direction; which can best be described as forces
of change and forces of chains or forces of lightness and forces of darkness. The
likes of AGF, Prof Sagay and Senator Ndume; by their dictatorial utterances,
clearly represent the forces of darkness or deformity, while the upright CSOs
and other democratic forces represent forces of lightness or change or
reformism. It is also a case of thinkers versus tinkerers or reformers
versus deformers or progressives versus retrogressives.
Further
attestation to the existence of the two forces of opposite direction
under the Buhari’s dictatorial presidency is the recent launch of online
signature project spearheaded by a risen constitutional lawyer and
Georgetown University law scholar, Ms Carol Ajie; for the purpose of compelling
President Muhammadu Buhari to obey court orders and other judicial
consequential pronouncements or resign or be impeached.
This
followed President Buhari’s blundered and incoherent maiden media chat of 30th
December 2015. The online petition signing, which has since exceeded its
target; was met with a counter online petition project, launched by Buhari’s
laptop activists and funded by the Presidency. While Counsel Carol
Ajie’s online petition targets at protecting and preserving rule of law,
constitutionalism and human rights in Nigeria; the Buhari Presidency’s
sponsored online petition targets at protecting and preserving rule of
lawlessness, un-constitutionalism and gross disrespect of human rights and
fundamental freedoms. In other words, the former represents agents
of change while the latter represents chain agents.
Counsel Carol Ajie’s advocacy step is deeply commendable, exemplary and
emulative.
It further gladdens our heart to note the recent
public position taken by the national leadership of the Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA) against the Buhari’s recent justification to his disobedience
to court orders in Nigeria particularly as it concerns the duo of Nnamdi Kanu
and Sambo Dasuki. Its insistence that court orders and judgments must be obeyed
and enforced to the letter in Nigeria by all authorities and persons; is a
welcome development. In Section 287 (1) (2) (3) of the 1999 Constitution, the
decisions of the Supreme Court, Court of Appeal, Federal High Courts, High
Courts of State and FCT and other subordinate courts, shall be obeyed and
enforced in any part of Nigeria by all authorities and persons including
President Muhammadu Buhari and his AGF.
It is also extremely important to note that the engine
house of the national interest is executive obedience to court orders and
protection and preservation of the citizens’ constitutional liberties. Justification
of executive disobedience to court orders as a protection of national
interest is abominable and impeachable. It is also a deliberate ploy to
bend the law and impeach the 1999 Constitution. Disobedience to court decisions
is one of the dimensions of corruption and a gross abuse of
office; contrary to Section 15 (5) of the 1999 Constitution. The AGF utterances
under reference are worse than his principal’s blundered and incoherent media
chat.
Protection
of public interest can never be equated with obvious presidential
threats to citizens’ sovereignty; enshrined and entrenched in Section
14 (2) (a) of the 1999 Constitution; to the effect that sovereignty
belongs to the people of Nigeria from whom government through this Constitution
derives all its powers and authority. The inflammable and defenseless
utterances of the AGF are therefore not surprising; which explains why English
Language professors also hold that liars use passive voice while truth
tellers use active voice.
As we
speak, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu has been detained by the DSS, on direct orders of
President Buhari for a total of 83 days without substantive trial and bail
release. All the four consequential court orders; ordering his unconditional
release, among others, have been rapaciously flouted by President Buhari with
impunity. In the alleged offenses of criminal conspiracy, among others brought
against him by the DSS, he was unconstitutionally detained or held beyond
constitutional deadline before being put on aborted trial. None of the three
consequential orders granted by the Wuse Zone 2 Magistrate Court was obeyed and
he was never released on bail.
Even when the Magistrate Court re-ordered for his
unconditional release following the abortion and discontinuation of his trial
by the same DSS, he was never released. Again when the Federal High Court took
notice of its erroneous and unconstitutional detention order granted to DSS and
reversed itself and ordered that Citizen Kanu should be released
unconditionally; President Buhari called and stopped the enforcement of the
court order.
Till
date, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu is not under any court remand in Nigeria and is
presently held under President Buhari’s personal order. While Sections 293, 294
and 296 of the Administration of the Criminal Justice Act of 2015 forbid any
authority or person other than Magistrate and High Court to detain any citizen
beyond 24hrs or 48hrs without court remand for maximum of 28
days without trial; Section 35 (4) (a) of the 1999 Constitution further forbids
detention of any citizen accused of committing offense of capital punishment
(life jail or death sentence) for more than 60 days or two months without being
released on bail or appropriately charged to court.
Till
date, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu has been held incommunicado for a total of 83 days
without released on bail or unconditionally, not even for an hour. His last
arraignment and preferring of phantom charges of treasonable felony and four
lesser others on 23rd December 2015 was aborted following his
refusal to take plea; citing Buhari’s defenseless disobedience to other court
orders. Till date, he is in custody under no court remand with his case file
seized and possibly being doctored by the office of the Chief Judge of the
Federal High Court. These are grievous violations of the provisions of the
Chapter Four of the 1999 Constitution.
Following
the Intersociety’s mocked advice to President Muhammadu Buhari to
construct two maximum security prisons
in each of the country’s 774 Local Government Areas; totaling 1,548 maximum
security prisons and ensure that average of 5,000 Nigerians are arrested and
detained monthly; we wish to add that it
is about time the NBA shut and grounded court proceedings; by way of
country-wide court boycotts until President Muhammadu Buhari obeys all the
subsisting court orders and signs an undertaking not to disobey decisions of
the court in Nigeria anymore. That is to say that condemnation of the
Presidency of Alhaji Muhammadu Buhari by NBA for flouting court decisions in
Nigeria is not good enough. More proactive steps such as country-wide court
boycotts are urgently needed to put the dictatorial policies and conducts of
his Presidency to adequate checks.
It is also about time the respected legal body
disbarred and suspended indefinitely any lawyer including any member of
the silk that supports the dictatorial policies and conducts of the
Buhari administration. It is abominable for NBA to fold its hands and watch the
sanctity and independence of the judiciary being presidentially soiled, tainted
and undermined with some of its errant members playing a leading role. If
decisions of courts are no longer subject to strict obedience and enforcement
at all times in any part of Nigeria; then NBA and the judiciary as well as
Nigeria’s constitutional democracy are irreparably doomed.
Finally, we wish to joyfully and warmly congratulate
the wife of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu; Uchechi, Nnamdi-Kanu for her healthy and safe
delivery of a baby boy. Unto the family of lion-hearted men, another lion
is born! This is a major setback for the Presidency of Buhari and its
dictatorial associates which had last week sponsored wicked media falsehood and
propaganda, saying “Citizen Nnamdi Kanu was caught in a hotel hibernating with
a young lady”. The sole malicious intent was to cause death-in-pregnancy of
Uchechi Kanu and his nine months unborn child and in-captivity divorce
in Citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s blessed marriage. To God Be The Glory All The
Time!!
Signed:
For: Coalition of Southeast Based Human Rights
Organizations (CSBHROs):
1. Emeka Umeagbalasi (+23474090052
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law
(Intersociety)
2. Comrade Aloysius Attah
(+2348035090548)
For: Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization (CLO)
3. Comrade Peter Onyegiri
(+2347036892777)
For: Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy (CHRPA)
4. Comrade Samuel Njoku
(+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Club (a project of LRRDC)(HRC)
5. Justus Uche Ijeoma,
Esq.(+2348037114869)
For: Forum for Justice, Equity & Defense of Human Rights (FJEDHR)
6. Comrade Chike Umeh (
+2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project (SPAW)
7. Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq.
(+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum (AHRF)
8. Comrade Alex
Olisa(+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum (SGGF)
9. Jerry Chukwuokolo, PhD
(+2348035372962)
For: International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative
(ITERSOLIDARITY)
10.
Evlyn Chinwe Eze, Esq. (+2347019646494)
For:
Street Law Africa (LawAfrica)
11.
Tochukwu Ezeoke (IEI) (+447748612933)
For: Igbo
Ekunie Initiative (pan Igbo rights advocacy group)
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