Political Briefs
–
EBUN-OLU Adegboruwa, Lagos-based lawyer, has called on all judges, lawyers and court workers in the country to immediately boycott the courtrooms over the arrest of seven judges by the Department of State Services, DSS. He said the explanation by the National Judicial Council, NJC, had made it obvious that the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government does not need the courts.
Adegboruwa said he recalled that Buhari had once said the judiciary was his headache, while Ibrahim Magu, acting chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, had also taken the same position. He said this in a statement on Friday, October 14, that with the DSS’ raid on judges, the executive had now cowed the judiciary and Nigerians should forget about getting fair hearing in court.
According to him, the outcome of the Edo State Election Petition Tribunal was already predetermined as no judge would ever rule against the ruling All Progressive Congress, APC, for fear of clampdown. In the light of this, Adegboruwa called on the Nigerian Bar Association, judges and court workers to boycott the courtrooms.
“Given the revelations that have emerged from the NJC, my humble cry is to the Nigerian Bar Association, the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria and indeed all judicial officers across Nigeria, to close down the courts. In the light of the emerging facts, this regime does not need the courts at all. What it desires is a situation whereby suspects are sent to jail without trial and once government has raised any allegation, regardless of the actual and true facts, the victim stands condemned.
“So, judges and courts are not needed at all. The President said so. The EFCC chairman said so, that the judiciary has been a headache. What the sting operation sought to and has indeed achieved is to place judicial officers under some terror, harassment, fear and indeed intimidation. Citizens will not be entitled to fair trial any longer and truly innocent people will now be sent to jail, since that is the preference of the government that will be the only way judges can be free from harassment. And we should be able to predict the outcome of the Edo State Election Petitions Tribunal already.”
He said it was only God that could help Nigeria as the government had no concrete plan to take the country out of recession and address the suffering and poverty that Nigerians were going through.
— Oct 24, 2016 @ 01:00 GMT
|
Tags:
