Human rights lawyer, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has accused President Muhammadu Buhari of humiliating Nigerian judges and suppressing the judiciary.
Adegboruwa, who levelled this allegation on Wednesday, said it was time the Nigerian Bar Association directed all the lawyers in the country to stay away from the court until Buhari gave his commitment to uphold the rule of law.
The lawyer, citing the re-arrest last week of a former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki, and Buhari’s comment on the case of the embattled Director of Radio Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, accused the President of emboldening security agents to shun court orders.
He claimed that the Buhari government was laying the ground for a state of anarchy and expressed the fear that lawyers would be run out of business if the people finally lose confidence in the court.
He said, “If the President, during a Presidential media chat, can state clearly that he will not release a person granted bail by a court because he suspects that the person will jump bail because of the avalanche of evidence, then we should close down the courts. There is no need approaching the court any longer.
“The NBA should do more than a press conference; I call on the President of the NBA to rise up and confront the executive; we should fight for the judges; we shouldn’t allow the judges to be treated in such humiliating manner, whereby their orders have become useless to the executive.
“We, as lawyers, have that responsibility because the court is our workshop. If the courts are no longer functioning lawyers cannot earn money. And it is our duty to cry out. It is our responsibility to come to the aid of the judiciary, which has no voice, because we can’t hear judges, they can’t talk, the NBA is supposed to speak for them.
“So, I am calling on Mr. Alegeh, the President of the NBA, to step up the game; let’s declare a strike; let the lawyers boycott the court until there is manifest commitment from the executive to obey court orders.”
Adegboruwa also called on the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, to take control of what he termed conflicting judgments coming from the Court of Appeal in respect of the election petitions, especially in the case of Rivers State.
According to him, failure to get hold of the system, would also occasion loss of integrity, respect and confidence in the court and might take Nigeria back to the dark days of political assassinations.
He urged the CJN to use the appeals pending before the Supreme Court, in the cases of Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Taraba states, to correct the seeming confusion created by the decisions of the lower courts.
“By now, we should have a settled principle of law in relation to election petitions, as we have in land cases, in matrimonial cases, in chieftaincy cases, etc. We cannot be shifting judicial principles and precedents to suit the whims and caprices of politicians, or to accommodate political interests,” Adegboruwa said.
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