Falana: Buhari Govt Floutting 32 Court Orders, Turning Nigeria Into Banana Republic

By Amechi Ekpeneru

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Femi Falana has condemned what he said is flagrant disobedience of court orders by the Nigerian government.

Speaking on Channels Television breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, Falana, said that he has compiled 32 court orders disobeyed by the Muhammadu Buhari administration saying that it is wrong for the president or attorney general to choose the order to obey.

Falana said he has compiled a list containing 32 court orders which were disobeyed by the Nigerian government.

“In my latest compilation, I’ve compiled about 32 court orders being disobeyed flagrantly by the government of Nigeria which is not in line with the rule of law,” he said.

“It doesn’t lie in the mouth of an attorney general or the president of a country to choose and pick which orders of court to obey.

“When you do that, you are reducing the status of the country to a banana republic. And that is why the bar has to rise up now and take its rightful place,” he said.

Falana warned that unless proactive steps are taken, nobody will respect the rights of Nigerians because “there is no penalty for impunity in our country.”

He said members of Nigerian Bar Association of Nigeria (NBA) should rise up and defend the rule of law, saying that the constitution of the NBA declares that human rights and the rule of law be defended.

“The official bar and the private bar have not taken the issue of human rights and democracy or even the rule of law seriously.

“We have a new human rights regime in our country on paper that can be compared with that of any civilised or advanced bourgeoise democracy

“For instance, under the current political dispensation, no Nigerian shall be detained in any detention center in Nigeria without an inspection, monthly inspection of the facility by a chief magistrate or a judge of the federal high court. In other words, you can no longer have indiscriminate arrest and detention,” he said.

“The constitution provides that anybody who is arrested by the police shall be taken to court within 24 or 48 hours.

He said lawyers should be concerned with illegal arrests which occur on a daily basis in Nigeria.

“The law, he said, provides that before you search or arrest a Nigerian, you must obtain a court order from a Federal High court.

“If you want to search his house, you obtain an order like a search warrant. If you want to seize his phone, you get an order, because your right to liberty, your right to the privacy of your home and correspondent are constitutionally entrenched.

“So, if you are going to violate any of those rights, you must obtain a court order. But what happens in Nigeria? You go and invade somebody’s house in the dead of the night, when you have kept him for few days, you suddenly realize ‘oh I need a court order’ then you rush to court. No, that’s not our law.”

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