Mahmood
Mohammed, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, has confronted President
Muhammadu Buhari in a face-to-face meeting in the Presidential Villa
following the weekend crackdown on federal judges and two Supreme Court justices by the country’s secret police, The Trent can exclusively report.
The meeting, which held in the morning
of Monday, October 10, 2016, was at the instance of the Honourable
Justice Mohammed, multiple sources reveal.
Present at the meeting were Lawal Daura,
the director-general of the Department of State Security Services, DSS,
which serves as the country’s secret police and the president of the
National Industrial Court of Nigeria, Babatunde Adejumo.
Our findings are that the meeting was
very tense and the chief justice did not mince words when addressing the
president on the matter. The visibly infuriated CJN tongue-lashed the
president for violating the democratic principles of separation of
powers and assuming the unconstitutional status of “supervisor” of the
judiciary, an independent arm of government.
Justice Mohammed accused President
Buhari of victimizing the judges targeted in the midnight crackdown by
the DSS for refusing to be intimidated by the secret police over the
matters of the election petitions of Rivers and Akwa Ibom states.
According to one of our top inside
sources, the CJN exposed a series of scare and intimidation tactics
carried out by the DSS director general, a kinsman to President Buhari,
to make the bench bow to its wishes and overturn the judgement against
the current governors of two oil-rich states.
Mohammed expressly accused the DSS DG of
using the name of President Buhari in carrying out what he called an
“unprecedented attempt to influence the bench and pervert justice” in
the country. The president was visibly upset by the revelations and
repeatedly denied knowledge of such harassment of of judges by the DSS.
Mr. Daura attempted to deny knowledge of
such subterranean moves and claimed that the judges that were arrested,
in what the secret police wrongly termed as “sting operation”, were
corrupt. A claim which saw the CJN shout him down telling him to shut up
and sit down.
After lambasting the secret police boss,
Justice Mohammed proceeded to unreel instances in which Daura contacted
judges handling the election petition cases claiming that ruling in
favour of the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidates was “what
President Buhari wanted”. Again, the president denies issuing such
instructions.
The CJN also revealed that the minister
of transportation, Rotimi Amaechi offered the judges millions of dollars
to overturn their ruling on the two election petitions. He said the
honourable justices rebuffed Amaechi because they were hellbent on
delivering a sound judgment on the cases which had been unduly
sensationalised by politicians.
Justice Mohammed revealed that Amaechi
also said that he was acting on the orders of the president and that in
actual fact, the judges arrested over the weekend were those who refused
to be corrupted by the DSS and Amaechi and insisted on preserving the
independence and integrity of the bench.
On this revelation, Buhari presented a
disturbed contenance, our sources say. The president requested that the
CJN puts down his position which we are reliably informed has been done.
Insiders revealed to The Trent that the climate in Aso Rock is unusually tense following the posture and damning revelations by the CJN.
There are whispers in the corridors that
based on the gravity of the allegations against the DSS director and
Amaechi, Buhari may let go of the duo to “clear his name from the
embarrassing episode’, a top security source told our reporter.
Justice Mohammed went on to describe
the DSS action as “very saddening”, “deeply regrettable” and a
“distressing and unfortunate” incident when he later addressed the valedictory court session
held in honour of a retiring Justice of the Supreme Court, Suleiman
Galadima. The attorney general of the federation and minister of
justice, Abubakar Malami was conspicuously absent at the event on
Monday.
In the early hours of Saturday, October 8, 2016, operatives of the county’s secret police invaded the homes of a number of senior judges and abducted some of them from the homes under the guise of an anti-corruption battle.
“My lords, invited guests, ladies and
gentlemen, not to detract from this occasion, it is indeed very
saddening and deeply regrettable, the distressing and unfortunate
incident which occurred on Friday, October 7 and Saturday, October 8,
2016,” Mohammed said at the valedictory court session held in honour of a
retiring Justice of the Supreme Court, Suleiman Galadima
President Buhari appointed Lawal Daura, his kinsman from his hometown in Katsina on July 2, as head of the DSS after firing Ita Ekpeyong.
Daura was recalled from retirement as he had retired from the service
of the DSS when he reached the mandatory age of 60 according to the
Civil Service rules of Nigeria. He is also a member of Buhari’s political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and served on the security committee for Buhari’s presidential campaign.
While the election petitions were being heard at the courts, the INEC resident electoral commissioners (RECs) for Akwa Ibom, Austin Okojie, was detained and tortured for 13 days and his Rivers State counterpart, Gesila Khan , was also detained for two weeks
by Nigeria’s secret police. The harassment, detention, and torture of
electoral officials of the two oil rich states was reportedly connected
with the interest of President Buhari in reclaiming electoral victory
from main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in those
states.
None of the INEC officials detained by
the DSS have been charged with any crime and the election petitions were
eventually ruled in favour of the PDP by the Supreme Court.
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