Constitutional
lawyers and human rights activists from various parts of the country yesterday
staged a protest in Abuja against the continued detention of former National
Security Adviser, NSA, Mohammed Sambo Dasuki, retd, and others, in spite of
bails granted them by the court.
They
flayed the executive arm of government for attempting to derail the rule of law
and democracy with utter disregard to valid and lawful court decision. The
protesters made copious reference to the ECOWAS Court of Justice which ordered
the release of Dasuki.
The
lawyers also accused the executive arm of mistaking persecution for
prosecution, insisting that any government or agency not obeying valid court
order could not claim to be prosecuting offenders but persecuting them.
The
group also passed a vote of confidence on the National Judicial Council, NJC,
over the matured manner and clear terms the council had been handling the
invasion of the houses of two Supreme Court Justices and five other cadres by
operatives of the Department of State Services, DSS.
The
legal practitioners, who claimed that the unconstitutional manner the judges
were arrested was a threat to democracy, appealed to the United Nations, United
Kingdom, United States of America and Amnesty International to call the Federal
Government to order and stop disobedience to the rule of law. The lawyers,’
operating under the aegis of “Lawyers in Defence of Democracy” and the human
right activists, operating under the platform of “Citizens for Good
Governance”, jointly accused the executive arm of government of plotting to
overthrow the judiciary so as to enthrone abuse of human rights and subversion
of the rule of law.
No comments:
Post a Comment