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 General 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 July 4, 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
Comrade Aloysius Attah, Chair, Anambra CLO & Head, Publicity, SBCHROs
Jerry Chukwuokoro, PhD, Head, Research & Strategy, SBCHROs
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