In one of his many media interventions this March, President Muhammadu Buhari informed a shocked global community of democrats that the Federal Government was not prepared to release former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Sambo Dasuki,from detention.
This high profile media statement on the legal challenge facing the erstwhile National Security Adviser Colonel Sambo Dasuki is one amongst many from the mouth of Mr. President just as the matter involving the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra and Director of the Europe Based Radio Biafra Mr. Nnamdi Kanu got similar media rebuke from President Muhammadu Buhari who proceeded to assert that both cases are so serious that his government isn’t prepared to soften the detention measures unleashed on these two individuals.
Not satisfied with the view he expressed in his maiden media chat on this same matter, the president has again restated that Dasuki, who is presently in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS), has multiple cases in court, which he must diligently face and answer. Mr President also has conveyed the express impression that Nnamdi Kanu has committed serious offence and therefore his government is not prepared to release him based on the numerous bail orders handed down by the different courts. The Nigerian government under Major General Muhammadu Buhari(rtd) had devised some incongruous means of frustrating the duo from enjoying the previous bail orders by filing multiple charges against these two persons on exactly the same categories of allegations that the Federal Government had given as the reason for their arrest at various times and in unrelated allegations.
Many constitutional experts believe that this method is indecorous and ungentlemanly and indeed inelegant and illegal because it would seem that government is simply scavenging for forum and reasons to ensure that the detention of these persons stays much longer than the Nigerian Constitution stipulates. The Presidency in the following quotations by the Media Aide Garba Shehu clearly employed this same fallacious reason as the justification for the failure of the government under Muhammadu Buhari to comply with the previous bail orders.
Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, in an interview with a national paper, explained that the cases against the former NSA were all complicated.
Reacting to criticisms that Buhari does not respect court orders and continues to detain Dasuki, the presidential spokesman said that “the ex-NSA’s problem is not with President Buhari who I must say has the highest regard for the rule of law.”
Garba noted that the president remained the best friend of the rule of law and due process the country has seen so far. The question Garba Shehu left unanswered is why is this ‘lover’ of principle of rule of law in gross breach of the constitutional principle of SEPARATION OF POWERS? Is it in the place of the President who is the head of the executive branch of government to dictate to the Judicial branch of government which case is serious and which is not? This attitude smacks of executive recklessness and arrogance of the abysmal dimension.
It is ridiculous that the Presidency then proceeded to use a process that is regarded as abuse of court process as the reason for violating the bail orders that competent courts of law granted these individuals. Why a government should file multiple charges in different courts over same allegations is legally incongruous and absurd.
Why should a government file multiple charges against individuals based on similar sets of allegations for which the Government arrested the suspects in the first instance? If you accuse Colonel Sambo Dasuki of allegedly diverting arms fund then why file multiple charges in different courts and if Nnamdi Kanu is facing the so called treason charges then why terminate the matter from one court to another all in an effort to scuttle his opportunity and constitutional right to enjoy the bail orders granted him by those courts from where the government unwittingly terminated the previous charges?
This is a case of clear abuse of the court process and it’s shameful that in this 21 st century the Presidency in Nigeria has fallen back to use this indecent and primitive anchor to hold two citizens indefinitely against binding bail orders.
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