The legal team of the suspended Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele, approached the Federal High Court, Abuja, to commence committal proceedings against the Department of State Security Service (DSS) for the continued detention of their client, has accused the Director General of the security agency of threatening to frame them for terrorism. The group of lawyers also accused him of labelling them IPOB/ESN Lawyers.

Mr Tijani Ahmed disclosed this yesterday in Abuja on behalf of the group, following a viral tweet by the DSS on their official tweeter handle in reaction to the processes filed by the consortium.

In the tweet, the DSS was quoted to have said: “Charge and bail, overzealous uninformed IPOB/ESN lawyer, Maxwell Okpara mobilizes other like-minded lawyers against DGSS. Futile Efforts. Well, Nigerians, beware! This is in bad faith. Transferred aggression.”

The tweet further read: “A Biafran Republic agitator and outlawed IPOB counsel defending the suspended CBN governor. Is IPOB defending one of theirs? What a contradiction. Hmmm…what is the connection? May Maxwell be properly educated on points of law, please.”

The lawyers claim that the tweet had gone viral. “At about 6 am when we met this morning, the tweet was still there on the handle of the SSS. This was about 17 hours after it had been posted and had really gone. At that time, it has been seen by about two million people globally, generated over 3600 comments, retweeted almost 5000 times and liked more than 2500 times.

The tweets which have been greeted by national outrage and condemnation are still on the handle of the security agency.

However, the lawyers while expressing their trauma following the tweets, listed several cases of disobedience to Court orders against D.G, DSS, Mr. Yusuf M. Bichi involving Igbo people, and asserted that he must have been suffering from what they termed “Igbophobia.”

Adding: “In the same vein, the tweet by the SSS has also exposed it very clearly to the world that the persecution Mr Godwin Emefiele suffers today is largely due to the ethnic profiling as directed by the DG SSS. The fact that Mr Emefiele is Igbo and attained the height of CBN Governor is an abomination to Bichi, hence his resolve to see that Emefiele is pulled down because to him, all Igbo are IPOB/ESN terrorists”, the group said.

Tijani also stated that it seems clear that Mr Bichi has declared war on lawyers and Igbo people and that the persecution being suffered by Emefiele is largely due to ethnic and political reasons asserting that it could not be a coincidence that several cases involving Igbo people were being serially disobeyed by the DG DSS.

The lawyers thereafter called for the sack of Mr Bichi from office for what they termed, manifesting open hatred against an ethnic group.

They equally alleged that the attitude of the DG DSS is capable of tarnishing the image of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and thanked the public for the overwhelming public condemnation that trailed the tweet.

The lawyers also resolved to write to President Tinubu, the UN, EU, UK and US governments on the issue. They equally planned legal action against the DSS over the tweet. (The Guardian)

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