The Southeast Based
Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs) comprising: International Society for Civil
Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety), Anambra State Branch of the Civil
Liberties Organization (CLO), Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy
(CHRPA), Human Rights Club (a project of LRRDC)(HRC), Forum for Justice, Equity
& Defense of Human Rights (FJEDHR), Society Advocacy Watch Project (SPAW),
Anambra Human Rights Forum (AHRF), Southeast Good Governance Forum (SGGF),
International Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative
(ITERSOLIDARITY) and Igbo Ekunie Initiative (pan Igbo rights advocacy group) wish
to tell all Nigerians and members of the international community to hold Senior
Advocates of Anarchy in the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) as well as
the government of Gen Muhammadu Buhari responsible in the event of total
collapse of the country’s pluralistic democracy and constitutionalism including
the rule of law and respect for and protection of constitutional liberties .
The present Senior Advocates of Anarchy, also referred to
as Democratic or Constitutional Anarchists are dominated by the
recipients of Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)-a
supposed eminent title created by the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee
(LPPC) headed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) for outstanding and
distinguished legal practitioners and law lecturers in Nigeria. The number of SANs
in Nigeria has risen to over 400 from its 344 as at 7th of July 2011.
By the anarchical activities of these legal anarchists, Nigeria’s
democracy and its constitutionalism have been grossly battered. The principles
of rule of law including civil liberties, equality before the law, fair hearing
and fair trial have also been battered and bastardized. Through the coupist and
anarchical activities of these latter day constitutional and democratic enemies,
pocketful of advancements made in these areas in the last dispensation
including observance of rule of law and protection of constitutional liberties
have been dangerously reversed.
The most worrying part of it all is that these are the same
characters that were respected locally and internationally as the beacons of democratic freedoms
and advocates of the voiceless particularly in two last democratic
governance dispensations. Economically and socially, most of these anarchists
have made it and ought to be conscientiously contented. How they turned
themselves into agents of darkness and profiteers of democratic anarchy still
baffles and shocks us till date. Shockingly too, most of the governance and
constitutional blunders and regime atrocities committed by the Buhari
administration today are solely on account of the anarchical advice and
clandestine roles of the Senior Advocates of Anarchy and their
conspirators under reference.
They are now run to for escapist advice and escapist legal
technicalities whenever an appointee or an apologist of the Buhari’s violent
democratic administration is caught in a web of corruption or state terrorism.
They go underground and say nothing whenever the Buhari administration orders
its security forces to massacre unarmed, defenceless and nonviolent citizens
and does massacre them. Instead, they aid and abet the perpetrators of these
State butcheries, launder their images and look for accidental opportunities to
rise in their inglorious defence. Whenever the Buhari administration breaches
the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 or bastardizes same;
they shamelessly rise in defence of his unconstitutional actions and turn the
Constitution upside down to suit and sustain their egoistic whims and caprices
and inglorious pact with the Buhari administration.
Their present activities, actions, conducts and opinions are
totally in contrary with the sacred provisions of the Constitution of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999. They have riotously settled for Decrees
No 2 and 4 of 1984 and disastrously impeached the 1999 Constitution.
They are now the opposites of the rule of law and constitutionalism, contrary
to their advocacy positions of recent past years. For instance, when late Chief
Gani Fawehinmi, SAN, took Governor Ahmed Tinubu (as he then was) to court (High
Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court) over an allegation of certificate
forgery, some of the anarchists under reference, rose in strong defence of
Governor Ahmed Tinubu’s constitutional immunity from criminal arrest, trial and
prosecution while in office and the Supreme Court rose in their support as per
shielding a sitting governor and president and their deputies from criminal
arrest, prosecution and trial while in office. But when the same immunity
question aroused in the case of sitting Governor Peter Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti
State and others, they turned around and turned the 1999 Constitution upside
down.
As if these were not enough, they recently threw their
professional and silk opinions behind the desperation of the Buhari
administration in its coupist efforts to unseat the Executive Governor of Abia
State, Mr. Okezie Ikpeazu, PhD as against clear provisions of the 1999
Constitution and age-long judicial precedents of fair hearing and right of
appeal. Even when it is elementarily clear to them that Governor Ikpeazu has a
right of appeal and that the Federal High Court decision is never final until
upheld by the Apex Court, they shamelessly referred to the Governor as “former
Governor of Abia State” and ordered him to vacate his office. It is recalled
that Governor Ikpeazu
was ordered to vacate office immediately by an Abuja Federal High Court on
account of controversies trailing the authenticity of his tax certificate and
information contained in his INEC Form CF100 during last gubernatorial
primaries. An order was also made for the second runners up in his Party
primaries (Mr. Uche Ogah) to be sworn in.
By legal and judicial conventions and clear-cut
provisions of the laws of the land including the Electoral Act of 2010 and the
1999 Constitution, the enforcement of judgment of the Federal High Court
remains on hold until it is sustained or upturned by the Court of Appeal and
the Supreme Court; exception being where the losing party decides not to
exercise his or her right of appeal or where he or she exercises his or her
right of appeal after the expiration of time lawfully allowed.
Specifically, in the plain language of the laws of the
land including the Electoral Act of 2010 and the 1999 Constitution, election
disputes are judicially resolvable through pre-election judicial
resolution and election judicial resolution and in the case of
governorship election matter, both are finally terminable at the Supreme Court.
But there are two fundamental exceptions to these: where the losing party
in the suit chooses not to exercise his or her right of appeal and where
the time allowed by law for appeal (21 days for election matter and up to 90
days for pre-election matter) elapses with the losing or
appellate party failing to exercise his or her right of appeal before the
expiration of time lawfully allowed. In other words, once a party
exercises his or her right of appeal within the time allowed, the enforcement
of the lower judgment is instantly arrested or put on hold no matter the weight
of its pronouncement as well as to avoid making his or her appeal nugatory or
subjecting same to judicial rascality.
Once a law is written in black and white, it
automatically defies contrary arguments. Also once a constitutional provision
is written in plain and straight language; it becomes suicidal and anarchical
for courts to rule otherwise. Judicial interpretations only hold sway where a
constitutional provision is written in confused or technical language. The
Supreme Court interpretation in Peter Obi vs INEC per Section 180 (2) of the
1999 Constitution, is a clear case in point.
It is therefore extremely important and imperative to
inform all Nigerians and members of the international community that no
amount of legal arguments or opinions of the private legal practitioners can
hold water under the laws of the land except where they are in tandem in
writing and context with the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and its
auxiliaries as well as judicial precedents and decided cases strictly laid down
for the protection and preservation of the mother-law or the 1999 Constitution.
Also courts of superior records (i.e. High Courts, Court
of Appeal and Supreme Court) are only invited from time to time, not to oust or
castrate the provisions of the 1999 Constitution but to protect and preserve
them. The Provisions of the Constitution can only be altered or amended or
changed by the National Assembly and the peoples of Nigeria through legislations,
referenda or constitutional conferences.
We
hereby hold that what is going on in Abia State must be regarded and treated as
“attempted coup” or attempt to change the
Government of Abia State by unconstitutional means; contrary to Section 1 (2)
of the 1999 Constitution which holds that “the Federal Republic of Nigeria shall not be governed,
nor shall person or group of persons take control of the government of Nigeria
or any part thereof, except in accordance with the provisions of this
Constitution”.
The latest brigandage and riotous conducts of the Buhari
administration in Abia State are just a tip of iceberg of regime atrocities and
gross misconducts lined up against the People of Nigeria. The hurried issuance
of Certificate of Return by INEC to Mr. Uche Ogah, without waiting for the
elapsing of Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s lawfully allowed time for
appeal, is a further attestation of the fact that the governance toxemia of the
Buhari administration has reached a hyper crisis stage. INEC’s excuse for such impeachable conduct is democratically
disastrous. Tragically, Nigeria has, in a twinkle of an eye, been catapulted
back to the leprous eras of Dagogo Jack’s NECON and Mauris Iwu’s INEC. Nigerian electoral industry is doomed when INEC
is now a victim of Aso Rock telephone controls and orders.
The Attorney General of the Federation’s grossly belated pronouncement (parties should wait for
court decisions) is nothing but a stampeded voice or medicine after death
reaction of a failed missioner, licking the wounds of his or her failed
mission. If the AGF is truly neutral and rule of law compliant, he
should not have waited until the Buhari’s coupist attempts to oust
the Government of Abia State temporarily failed on account of sustained public
outcries.
Assuming, but not conceding that the AGF is a quota
system SAN, it is too elementary in law for his office to know that Governor
Okezie Ikpeazu is an institution and enjoys immunity by virtue of his position
as the Executive Governor of Abia State. He holds in trust collective destiny,
welfare and security of the People of Abia State and therefore deserves to be
accorded such respect and protection until the Supreme Court says otherwise.
The coupist roles of the security agencies controlled by
the Buhari administration in the attempted coup are not surprising too. But for
courageous and conscientious roles of the Chief Judge of Abia State, the
Federal coupists would have succeeded in ousting the Governor violently with
clear consequences of forcing Abia State going up in flames, which would have
further led to Presidential State of Emergency and imposition of a lame duck
federal sole administrator.
We therefore warn the Buhari administration to steer
clear of the Abia State Government House and allow the rule of law and judicial
processes to be exhausted fully; likewise Mr. Uche Ogah, who may most likely
have struck a decampment deal with the ruling party of the Federal coupists.
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu, on his part, is called upon to
learn a lot of lessons from his present ordeal in the hands of the same violent
coupists he had conspired with in the 9th of February 2016
massacre of 22 innocent, unarmed, nonviolent and defenseless IPOB
activists at the National High School in Aba . He further participated vicariously
in burning to ashes the corpses of 13 bodies of murdered IPOB activists dumped
in an Aba burrow. The remains of the 13 murdered IPOB activists were seen
burning to ashes on 2nd of March 2016 by an Amnesty International
research attaché, who went to the site in continuation of his investigation.
Therefore, our decision to rise in defence against
Governor Okezie Ikpeazu’s ordeal in the hands of the
Buhari administration purely stems from objectivity and defence of our hard-won
democracy and constitutionalism.
Signed:
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human
Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Leader SBCHROs &
Board Chair, Intersociety
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Comrade Aloysius Attah, Chair, Anambra
CLO & Head, Publicity, SBCHROs
Mobile Line: +2348035090548
Jerry Chukwuokoro, PhD,
Head, Research & Strategy, SBCHROs
Mobile Line: +2348035372962
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