Law

Rampant disobedience of court orders by security organs

Published

2 years ago

December 5, 2022

admin

By Ehichioya Ezomon

The rule of law is both foundational and fundamental to democratic governance in a civilised society. Absence of the rule of law inevitably breeds the rule of the jungle.
One of the tenets that undergird the rule of law is order of court, whose disregard of or disrespect to may lead to anarchy that thrives on might and tramples upon rights.
That’s why November 2022 is significant, as Nigeria seeks to move away further and farther from the era of the jackboots, to deepening the country’s democratic ethos.
In the past month, the courts have shone more light on what’s always been visible to the public: The regular and continuous disrespect to court orders by the heads – at whatever level – of Nigeria’s multiple security agencies.
Within three weeks, three judges of High Courts in Abuja and Minna have ordered the arrest and imprisonment of four high-profile security officers “for contempt of court.”
Those indicted: Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); Inspector General of Police (IGP); Chief of Army Staff (COAS); and Commandant of Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC).
While the court censor of EFCC Chairman Abdulrasheed Bawa came early in November, the orders on IGP Usman Alkali Baba, COAS General Farouk Yahaya and TRADOC Commander Major-General Stevenson Oluwagbenga Olabanji, respectively, were given in late November.
It doesn’t matter if these officers superintend regular, quasi or para-security outfits, bear arms or legally recognised to carry out the duties they so discharge.
A similar thread runs through them: Brazen disregard of and disrespect to court orders, as if they’re above the law, which they take into their hands with reckless abandon.
This decadeslong proclivity is what the November court rulings spotlighted as a growing concern within the Officer Corps, and among the rank and file of the security.
Often, you hear officers – mainly of the lower ranks – boasting, “I will deal with you mercilessly, and nothing will happen. You can go and report to the IG or the Commander-in-Chief, and I tell you nothing will happen.”
If the rank and file exhibit such a level of indiscipline, why would you expect members of the Officer Corps to respect mere orders of courts issued by “bloody civilians?”
Hence the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) was against the “norm” when it asked IGP Baba to “pack your bags (and) head to Kuje prison now.”
Because the IGP won’t obey the order – not even for its symbolism – and report himself to prison with his office and power behind him: armed escorts and blaring sirens.
HURIWA had urged the IGP to obey the three-month prison sentence immediately, and “surrender himself with his prison bag straight to the Correctional Centre in Kuje.”
“He (Baba) should not treat this court order with ignominy or contempt,” HURIWA said in a statement, adding, “Anything outside of strict compliance with this court order will mean that Nigeria has become a banana republic.”
HURIWA called on President Muhammadu Buhari “to personally supervise the surrender of the IGP to the Federal Correctional Centre, Kuje, without wasting time.”
But rather than obey by “complying with the judgment or getting a stay of execution order quickly,” as HURIWA counselled, the IGP’s complaining and issuing excuses of “I’m not aware of such a court order.”
The Force Public Relations Officer, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, claimed that, “the (IGP’s) office is not aware of any Court Order, during the current IGP’s tenure, with respect to a matter… that the IGP disobeyed a Court Order for the reinstatement of a dismissed officer of the Force.”
“It is instructive to note that the case in point concerns an officer who was dismissed as far back as 1992, a few years after the current IGP joined the Nigeria Police Force, based on available facts gleaned from the reports.
“The most recent judgement on the matter was given in 2011 which should ordinarily not fall under the direct purview of the current administration of the Force. Thus, the news is strange and astonishing.
“The IGP has however directed the Commissioner of Police in charge of the Force Legal Unit to investigate the allegation in a bid to ascertain the position of the court and proffer informed legal advice for the IGP’s prompt and necessary action,” Adejobi said.
Meanwhile, the IGP’s filed a motion to vacate the order for his arrest and committal to prison, arguing that the processes for the contempt proceedings were served in 2018, and 2019 “on the former IG, and not on him as the incumbent.”
“This was evidenced by an official letter addressed to the Police Service Commission, on the approval of the then IG, as far back as 2015, before the court order of November 29, 2022,” PPRO Adejobi said in a statement.
“The then IG requested the commission to issue a reinstatement letter to the plaintiff, and effect his promotion, in line with the order of the court in the exercise of its statutory authority.”
Similarly, without complying with his committal to prison, Mr Bawa quickly appealed the ruling from a 2018 court order that the EFCC return a Range Rover and N40 million it’d seized from retired Air Vice Marshal Adeniyi Ojuawo.
The trial Justice Chizoba Oji had discharged and acquitted Ojuawo for lack of diligent prosecution, and ordered that his car and money be returned to him.
But last November – after four years – Ojuawo filed an application over non-compliance with the court order, leading Justice Oji to order Bawa’s arrest and jailing for three months, “having continued wilfully in disobedience to the order of this court… until he purges himself of the contempt.”
Two days later, the Judge vacated the order when she’s satisfied with the evidence placed before her that the EFCC had returned the car to Ojuawo, with arrangements in place to refund the N40 million to the applicant.
The circumstances of the case involving the COAS and TRADOC’s commander are unclear, but the Niger State Chief Judge, Justice Halima Ibrahim Abdulmalik, has committed Gen. Yahaya and Maj.-Gen. Olabanji to prison in Minna for three months “until they purge themselves of contempt.”
The matter is based on a 2019 suit (NSHC/225/2019 in Minna) between Adamu Makama and 42 others versus the Executive Governor of Niger State and seven others.
At its resumed hearing on October 12, 2022, Justice Abdulmalik gave an order – which the COAS and TRADOC commander reportedly flouted – prompting Mohammed Liman, the plaintiffs’ counsel, to file for contempt.
The case has been adjourned to December 8, but as it happened with the IGP and EFCC’s Chairman, Nigerians are yet to hear about the arrest and imprisonment of the COAS and TRADOC commander for contempt.
Will these Military top shots also appeal the court order for their arrest and committal to prison, make themselves available for transfer to the correctional centre in Minna or join others that place themselves “above the law”?

Mr Ezomon, Journalist and Media Consultant, writes from Lagos, Nigeria.

Post Views: 58

Law

MAMBILLA: Court halts proceedings, adjurns over EFCC’s invalid prosecution witness against Agunloye

Published

11 months ago

May 30, 2024

admin

The hearing of the criminal charges against the former Minister of Power and Steel, Dr. Olu Agunloye, which formally began at the FCT Court Thursday, 30 May 2024 before the same Justice Jude Onwuegbuzie was stalled over presentation of invalid prosecution witness by EFCC against Agunloye

EFCC is prosecuting Dr. Agunloye for “awarding in 2003 a $6 billion Build, Operate and Transfer $¾(BOT) contract without cash backing, disobeying oral directives of the President, forging his own letter as a sitting Minister and receiving a retroactive bribe of N3.6 million 16 years after.” To prove its case, EFCC has listed seven witnesses excluding former President Chief Olusegun Obasanjo who had earlier volunteered to testify at the court.

At the court, EFCC presented its first Prosecution Witness (PW1), Mr Adewale as “representative of the Guaranty Trust Bank”. He was brought to discuss the GTBank statement of accounts presented by EFCC. But the moment Mr Adewale disclosed that he was not in the employment of GTBank, the defence lawyers quickly pointed out the aberration to the court which immediately halted the presentation of Mr Adewale. The court promptly stopped the proceedings and adjourned the hearing till Monday, 10 June 2024 to enable the EFCC regularise its Prosecution Witness Number One.

It will be recalled that the former Minister, Dr. Olu. Agunloye, has consistently asserted that he did not commit any crime, and that EFCC is prosecuting him to corroborate FGN’s pleas at the arbitration in France hoping to free FGN from liabilities in the Arbitration even though FGN knows that the issues that led to the international arbitration were caused under Buhari’s APC Government and not by Agunloye. However, Agunloye will have to combat the emergent bias, prejudice, and prejudgment on the part of the trial judge and has to struggle very hard for justice in Nigeria.

Post Views: 84

Law

EFCC to arraign Bello on Thursday over alleged N80.2b money laundering

Published

1 year ago

April 17, 2024

admin

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC) has indicated it will on Thursday, April 18, 2024 arraign a former governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Adoza Bello before a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja.

The antigraft agency said Bello will be arraigned before Justice Emeka Nwite alongside three other suspects, Ali Bello, Dauda Suleiman and Abdulsalam Hudu on 19- count charges bordering on money laundering to the tune of N80, 246,470, 088.88
The arraignment is being perfected following a warrant of arrest and enrolment order granted the EFCC by the court on Wednesday, April 17, 2024.

Count one of the charges reads: That you, Yahaya Adoza Bello, Ali Bello, Dauda Suliman, and Abdulsalam Hudu( Still at large), sometime, in February, 2016, in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court, conspired amongst yourselves to convert the total sum of N80, 246,470, 088.88 which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of the proceeds of your unlawful activity to wit, criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 18(a) and punishable under Section 15(3) of the Money Laundering ( Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended”.

Count 17 of the charges read: “That you Yahaya Bello between 26th July 2021 to 6th April 2022 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court aided E-Traders International Limited to conceal the aggregate sum of N3081,804,654.00( Three Billion, Eighty One Million Eight Hundred and Four Thousand Six Hundred and Fifty Four Naira) in account number 1451458080 domiciled in Access BankPlc, which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of proceeds of unlawful activity to wit, criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 18(a), 15(2) (d) of the Money Laundering ( Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended and punishable under Section 15( 3) of the same Act.

Count 18 of the charges reads: “That you Yahaya Adoza Bello sometime in November 2021 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable Court indirectly procured E-Traders international Limited to transfer the aggregate sum of $570,330.00( Five Hundred and Seventy Thousand , Three Hundred and Thirty Dollars) to account number 4266644272 domiciled in TD Bank, United States of America which sum you reasonably ought to have known forms part of proceeds of unlawful activity to wit, criminal breach of trust and you thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 15(2) (d) of the Money Laundering ( Prohibition) Act, 2011 as amended and punishable under Section 15( 3) of the same Act”.

“The Commission’s attempt to execute the Warrant of Arrest lawfully obtained against Bello met stiff resistance on Wednesday, April 17, 2024. The security cordon around the former governor’s residence in Abuja was breached by the current Governor of Kogi State, Usman Ododo who ensured that the suspect was spirited away in his official vehicle.
“As a responsible law enforcement agency, the EFCC exercised restraint in the face of the provocation, waiting for his arraignment on Thursday, April 18, 2024.

“It is needful to state that Bello is not above the law and would be brought to justice as soon as possible.”

Post Views: 73

Law

Court bars Ganduje from parading himself as member of APC

Published

1 year ago

April 17, 2024

admin

Yhe Kano State High Court has granted an ex parte order restraining the National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Ganduje, from parading himself as a member of the party.

The court ordered that Ganduje must refrain from presiding over all affairs of the National Working Committee of the APC.

The application waa said to have been granted by Justice Usman Na’abba on Tuesday, following an ex parte motion filed by Dr. Ibrahim Sa’ad on behalf of two executive members of Ganduje’s ward, Dawakin-Tofa Local Government Area, the Assistant Secretary, Laminu Sani and Legal Adviser, Haladu Gwanjo (plaintiffs), who were part of the nine ward executives who suspended Ganduje on Monday.

The court directed the four parties (respondents) joined in the matter, including the APC, NWC, APC Kano State Working Committee, and Ganduje, to henceforth, maintain status quo ante belum as of April 15th,2024 pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit on April 30th 2024

Justice Na’abba, also held as prayed, stopped State Working Committee APC Kano from interfering with the legally and validly considered decision of executives of Ganduje ward, essentially on action endorsed by a two-thirds majority of the executives as provided by the party constitution.

The ex parte order read,, “An order is hereby granted directing all parties in the suit APC (first), APC National Working Committee (second), Kano State Working Committee APC (third), Dr. Abdullah Umar Ganduje (fourth), to maintain status quo ante belum as of April 15, 2024.
“The order thereby restraining the first respondent (APC) from recognising the fourth respondent (Ganduje) as a member of APC and prohibiting the fourth respondent (Ganduje) from presiding over any affairs of the NWC and restraining the state Working Committee from interfering with the legally and validly decision of the ward executives of Ganduje ward.

“That the fourth respondent (Ganduje}is prohibited from parading himself as a . member of APC or doing any act that may _ portray him or seem to be a member of APC pending the hearing and determination of the
substantive suit.”

Nine members of the Ganduje ward proclaimed the suspension of the National Chairman of the APC over the allegation of corruption slammed on him by the Kano State Government.

The nine APC executives said they were prompted to act following a petition written by one Ja’afaru Adamu, a member of the AP from the National chairman’s polling unit.

in the petition, Adamu complained over allegations of corruption charges against the
former governor just as he urged the ward leaders to investigate the matter to redeem the dented image of the party and the implication on President Bola Tinubu’s fight against corruption.

Although the chairman and secretary of the ward failed to act on the petition filed en April 8, 2024, nine members of the executives, led by the legal adviser, acted upon the petition, a decision that led to Ganduje’s suspension.

Post Views: 90