By Bashir Adefaka
I have always observed that those who claim to be activists, either lawyers or Non–Governmental Organisations (NGOs) or aluta to which Omoyele Sowore belong, only respect court or make peace when they find its ruling favourable. Otherwise, they want to shutdown the country.
Who then is more hardened in enemty with the rule of law if not this set of people who agitate for freedom to elements whose major aims and objectives are (backed by foreign collaborators) to strip their one and only country of its sovereignty and then set it in chaos. How can you constitutionally vote a government into power and you just make as hobby not to trust, cooperate with and support the government to succeed in the jobs you placed before it to do? If you agree that DSS is custodian of secrets of Nigeria, why do you disbelieve the Service under a trusted Government in terms of intelligence which is available only to it and not known to you? On this basis they are running down the DSS just because they believe any of their favoured members is above the law!
They accuse government of selecting what law to obey. Ask these activists if they don’t select what course to defend. These are the public defenders who defend members of the public only when they belong to their religious, ethnic leanings. Although no Muslim has defended Shiites terrorism, they were influenced by religious and ethnic sentiments by leaving their defence of Ibrahim El-Zakzaky to one lawyer on client-lawyer ground. But IPOB is as terroristic as Shiites, they defend it in their whole. Twelve years old school girl in Lagos was beaten to 43 strokes of case by a Christian bigot made principal for wearing hijab after school hours, these activists were duly informed, because the girl was seen to be Muslim, they turned their eyes away. But based on fallacies by some destructive elements in the society, they chose to believe the Leah Sharibu story and have stood with all the opposition against sitting government. Yet, they accuse government that is only doing its job sincerely of selecting what law to obey.
They are the same people you find behind Boko Haram whereby they frustrate military effort to end the terrorist activities in the North East, just like Amnesty International has been doing. Unfortunately one particular media organisation was detected to be revealing military strategies to this dreaded group by way of publication. When the Army invaded the office of the medium to forestall further publication, these were the activists who went to town calling the Army and President Muhammadu Buhari unprintable names. Aren’t journalists supposed to be patriotic to know how not to do things which make journalism impracticable for them?
They are the same people found giving liver to all other distabilisation elements and groups in the country such as the Islamic Movement in Nigeria called the Shiites group, the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) both terrorist organisations by declaration of courts. They are now the people fueling anti-State struggle over action taken against threat to national security embarked upon by Sowore, who has since been arrested and put in custody.
At the NBA National Conference in 2018 President Buhari reminded them of the Supreme Court verdict on what happens by State when national security is threatened. Many of the lawyers later on pages of the newspapers, television and radio argued the presidential pronouncement calling their attention to that apex court ruling.
I quote from one of the arguments as follows:
“…the decision of the court has been with respect to the suspension of fundamental rights and not the rule of law. This is exemplified by the decision of the Supreme Court in Dokubo-Asari v Attorney General of the Federation, wherein it was held that on account of national security, fundamental rights could be suspended”, said by Mr Somina Johnbull (Secretary, NBA, Yenagoa branch) and published by Punch September 4, 2018.
Recall that the arguments on Omoyele Sowore started from DSS having no power to arrest him. Even Prof. Wole Soyinka who has been dining and wining with governments (Federal and states directly or indirectly) for sometimes now raised his voice against Federal Government thus giving Sowore and his unpopular coupist group the liver to reign all sorts of threats and insults on the country, the President and the rezt of us.
Now, if we all (at least the majority) agreed that by the actions and speech of Sowore our national security was threatened, what gave those who opposed his arrest the temerity to do so? Now going by what one of them, as quoted above, submitted, does it mean they do not believe in the Constitution being that it is creation of the military like they used to claim or that they just choose to obey and respect what aspect of the law favours them?
If the answer is in the afermative, then, why do they accuse the government of having committed what in reality they are culprits in? It is because these lawyers don’t believe in the Supreme Court verdict on national security and fundamental human rights that they went to lower court to challenge, on claim of rights, arrest of a politician, failed presidential election contestant who decided to go through the back door using coup to cause national chaos so that instead for him not to rule (and what is his strength?), nobody will rule.
That is what he means by his revolution mobilisation that already did what Gideon Okar did in his coup of 1991 announcing – before fully taking power – the severance of some parts of the North out of Nigeria and the rest. In his case, Sowore already told what he wanted to achieve: to remove a democratically elected President, sack a constitutionally formed government, when the Department of State Service (DSS) will cease to exist and he said more treasonable things, which, if the DSS did not move against him immediately, would have caused anarchy in the land and by now the former situation of Rwanda would have been better than what that publisher of Sahara Reporters intended to do to Nigeria, where he practices journalism, in terms of national security. God forbid!
The question again is, when the DSS approached and sought the high court In Abuja to hold him for 90 days, knowing the powers wielded by government to hold such person as having threatened our collective national security and therefore that it can hold him for as long as it wanted to, was the judge not aware of the apex court ruling before it cut down the request of the DSS which is the only custodian of the secrets of the nation by law and which is accountable only to the President of the Federal Republic?
If he was aware and he he went ahead to after cutting down on DSS request still went ahead and released the suspect on bail, how best can his contrubution to national security of the Federal Republic of Nigeria be described? And those who are calling for the head of DSS and calling President Buhari a dictator over this matter, what can we really call them in the human thinking about Nigerianism? Are they really part of us? Are they not symbolic of hypocrisy or how can you, as lawyers, claim by your behaviour not to believe in Constitution of your country, because it is creation of the military, and you still go to court to expect that that same Constitution must award you favour, even though the law is unaware of your hypocrisy or displeasure of your targets?
For how long do we continue to allow such people distort our destiny in this country? After all we all own Nigeria. Why are they behaving like the rest of us don’t have a stake? These are the same lawyers who connived with their colleagues serving in the Senate to help leader of a terrorist group known as IPOB, Nnamdi Kanu, escape justice and taken to Europe where he now causes embarrassment to the name Nigeria although to him and his terrorist followers, Nigeria is just a zoo. Imagine that same group that doesn’t believe in Nigeria went to Nigerian Court to be awarded favour against Nigerian Government and a judge of the Nigerian Court granted him bail, knowing to those who did surety for him that they were going to make him jump bail.
More saddening, these lawyers and senators continue to be accorded the respect of protection and earn salaries from the Commonwealth of Nigerian Nation despite their big roles sabotaging efforts of Government to ensure stability of national social, cultural, economy and security.
With all of these misbehaviours, when will Nigeria get out of the quagmire politicians of 1999-2015 era of the nation’s administration plunged it? It will take a resolve of those of us who have seen what descent society looks like, having traveled wide and near, to solidarise with any government we know is sincere in its effort to give us the Nigeria of our dream, where our imported and locally refined fuel will no longer be smuggled to neighbouring countries for self gains of people who use Nigria money to enslave its innocent citizens, where we will have respect and attach importance to what is our own in terms of local manufacturing, farming and national values.
To this end, before I hang my pen till another time, let me say: you claimed Lawal Daura didn’t know work as DG DSS. Now, to say Yusuf Bichi is a failure for doing what should be done to protect life and national security means that you, yourself are not only a failure for lacking knowledge to know when an officer of state is performing well but also you are a disaster.
So, let the Federal Government rescue its DSS by coming open to take a position on Sowore and explain why and how what it is doing is not a breach of any law neither disrespect of court judgement. If any judge is found not cooperating on national security, let him be reported to the National Judicial Council (NJC) to serve as deterent to other compromised judges and lawyers.
*Bashir Adefaka, an Isolo Akure Prince, is Lagos based media practitioner. Contact him via omope72@gmail.com.
