A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has expressed disappointment and utter dissatisfaction with the refusal of the presiding judge of the Federal High Court, Abuja Division, Her Lordship, Justice Mrs. Binta Murtallah-Nyako to grant bail to the detained Leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, few days after President Muhammadu Buhari said Nnamdi Kanu wouldn’t be granted bail in what appears like Executive versus Judicial gang-up against the defendant.
HURIWA said as a civil rights body, it is dismayed that the Honourable Judge of the Federal High Court did not even make reference to that extrajudicial comments of the head of another arm of government, President Muhammadu Buhari, that the first defendant in a suit between the Federal Government and a citizen Mazi Nnamdi Kanu wouldn’t be granted bail but she proceeded to do exactly as stated by the President as if to say that the judiciary is subservient to the executive arm of government.
HURIWA is appealing to the judiciary to safeguard her independence to avoid encouraging Nigerians to resort to self-help measure if they perceive that the judiciary does the bidding and execute the scripts authored by politicians in the office of President Muhammadu Buhari.
HURIWA in a statement in reaction to the reported rejection of the bail application filed by Nnamdi Kanu who has spent a year in pre-trial detention with the Department of State Services (DSS) said it was disturbing that President Buhari, who instituted the matter against Kanu and his organization, seems to be adopting underhand tactics to cajole another independent arm of government, the judiciary, to do his bidding as against the clear provisions of the Constitution on separation of powers.
Besides, HURIWA said it is unclear why a citizen would spend a year in prison whilst undergoing trial for charges that the federal government has not adduced irrefutable proofs but there are top government officials who looted public treasury to the tune of nearly N200 billion per person which endangers national security but such alleged ‘thieves’ are on bail even when the offence of such a large economic sabotage of Nigeria is the reason why insecurity has overwhelmed the current administration whereas the charges against Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is bordered on alleged use of inflammatory language against the person of President Buhari.
HURIWA said although it is not in her place to determine for the presiding judge how to discharge her constitutional obligations but said the unfair treatment of Nnamdi Kanu because of where he comes from is against Section 42(1) of the Constitution which absolutely makes discrimination unacceptable and unlawful.
The group said the accusations of diversions of humonguous quantum of public cash which should ordinarily attract death penalty is treated with indifference by the judiciary particularly because most of those being accused were of a particular section of the country and are considered to be in the good books of the ruling All Progressives Congress which, the rights group said, makes Nigeria appear like a rogue entity.
HURIWA said the extra legal attempts by President Muhammadu Buhari to coerce the judiciary to do the bidding of his whims and caprices shows that indeed Nigeria is not just a Banana Republic but a full dictatorship.
According to HURIWA, the Judiciary under section 6 enjoys the judicial powers of the state, adding that under Section 36(5) every accused person is deemed to be innocent in the eyes of the law.
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