In what is seen as significant shift from a conservative body, the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has opened up on what it sees as the executive’s flagrant disobedience to lawful court orders, describing it as very dangerous for the country.

While strongly condemning the maltreatment of suspects, the body declared that the oxygen of democracy is the unabridged adherence to the rule of law.

In its first public comment on President Buhari’s refusal to comply with some court orders, especially on the trial of persons linked to the arms purchase scandal and Biafra agitators, the NBA said its position on the thorny issue of obedience to the concept of the rule of law, remains unwavering.

The association said that it has consistently charged any government in power to always respect the law and would continue to do so.

At a workshop organised by the Rule of Law Development Foundation in Abuja, yesterday,

the NBA National President, Mr. Augustine Alegeh, SAN, told the participants who were mostly lawyers that it would be a disaster for the legal profession if the President Buhari-led Federal Government fails to adhere to the NBA’s mantra of the rule of law.

Alegeh, who said there is no alternative to total obedience to the law by any government, explained that the concept of rule of law in a democratic dispensation could be likened to what air is to human beings.

He declared that government would lose its moral right to enforce law and order if it fails to obey court orders.

When asked to comment specifically on the disobedience of court orders by the Federal Government in its ongoing anti-corruption war involving the former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd), Alegeh said the association would not speak on such matters as they are before the court.

According to Alegeh, “The Rule of law is the mantra of the NBA. It is what NBA stands for and there is no alternative to it. Government will lose the moral right to enforce the rule of law if it disobeys court orders. What we can say is that government must obey court orders. There is no substitute to that.

“If NBA starts defending Dasuki in the press, what then is the need to hire lawyers to defend accused persons?

“We have an Attorney-General of the Federation and a Vice President who are both Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) in this government. So, it will be our collective failure if this administration does not respect the rule of law. Rule of law is the air that democracy breathes.”

On the maltreatment of financial crime suspects by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Alegeh narrated a scenario where he had to intervene in the inhuman treatment of a retired Chief of Air Staff by the commission under the leadership of its former chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde.

“The last time that I had to meet the last EFCC chairman was when I heard that a former Chief of Air Staff was being maltreated by the commission. And I went to the EFCC and it was dehumanising and the chairman, Ibrahim Lamorde, assured us that they would change.”

The Coordinator of the Rule of Law Development Foundation (RLDF), Chief Joseph Daudu (SAN), advised the federal government to observe due process in its ongoing fight against corruption in the country.

Daudu, who spoke on the theme of the workshop: “The Role of the Legal Profession in the Enthronement of the Rule of Law, Due Process and Constitutional Governance in Nigeria,” asserted that there must be strict compliance with constitutional provisions in government’s bid to tackle graft.

Although Daudu lauded the anti-corruption crusade, he called for caution so as not to dismember the judiciary.

“The foundation wishes to make it clear that it supports the current anti-corruption crusade being fought by President Muhammadu Buhari. That is the only way we can make progress and acquire a definitive future for our children and others yet to be born.

“But such a critical crusade must be fought in accordance with due process and the rules enshrined in the 1999 Constitution, which every stakeholder in this administration has sworn to uphold,” Daudu declared.

He disagreed with “the arguments in some quarters that the level of corruption and the brazen inhuman way it was allegedly carried out by previous governments demand some measure of unorthodox and indeed draconian tactics in order to make headway.”

The erstwhile NBA President noted that waging war against corruption without observance of due process, rule of law and having regards for the country’s constitution, was wrong and unacceptable.

He queried: “Why are properties being seized or publicised as seized by anti- corruption agencies in the absence of plea bargain or convictions under Section 272 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act 2015?

“What is the rationale for subjecting suspects to cruel and inhuman punishments such as shackling and manacling them without any justifiable basis?

“Why is there trial by propaganda” Daudu asked, stressing that “these overzealous measures downgrade and diminish this laudable long time fight against corruption.”

•Photo shows NBA President, Augustine Alegeh, SAN.

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