Protesters, under the aegis of Coalition of Civil Society Groups, on Thursday stormed the Lagos State House of Assembly to protest against alleged refusal of President Muhammadu Buhari to obey court orders.
They also urged the National Assembly to impeach Buhari if he refused to change.
However, a few minutes into the protest, another set of protesters, the All Progressives Congress Anti-Corruption Volunteers, stormed the governor’s office to support Buhari’s crusade against corruption.
The protesters against Buhari displayed placards with inscriptions, ‘No to disobedience to court orders and impunity,’ ‘Obey the rule of law, say no to rule of fear,’ ‘Let there be strength in justice, and ‘Disobedience to court order is anarchy,’ among others.
The protesters, in a letter to President of the Senate, Dr. Bukola Saraki, demanded the commencement of impeachment proceedings against Buhari should he continue to flout court orders and the rule of law.
The letter, signed by Innocent Agbo of the Human Rights Defenders and Advocacy Centre; Dandy Eze of Paths of Peace Initiative; Comrade Popoola of Committee for Defence of Human Rights; and Emmanuel John of the Concerned Nigerians and Centre for Democratic Rights Derivatives, warned members of the upper legislative chamber not to treat the protesters’ calls with levity.
“We reject President Buhari’s utterances during the recent Presidential Media Chat, that those granted bail by the court would not be released based on his conviction of the gravity of the offence they committed. That is not the rule of law,” the letter read in part.
But the APC anti-corruption volunteers, who went to the Lagos State Governor’s Office in Alausa, Ikeja, urged the president to continue the ongoing fight against corruption.
The group, which displayed placards and banners with messages such as, ‘Stop corruption in the judiciary,’ and ‘Probe $20bn missing in NNPC,” among others, said they were on the same page with the president.
The spokesman for the group, Mr. Adeola Adegbite, said, “We are supporting the president because it is necessary to detain suspects in order to ensure a thorough investigation. (Punch)
One wonders about human thought process sometimes. As it is said: no smoke without fire; and desperate situation calls for desperate measures…these being that with hindsight, the revelations and disclosures in the country call for dratic measures to ensure that justice is served. Those advocating for retribution against the president should give a rethink to why the decision is being taken to continue to detain those already found complicit in various financial mismanagement and misappropriation – in a state of a nation where almost everything productive had gone down the abyss. Questions will be asked what the nation’s leadership and its followership set as priority and whether such priority is congruous to the ongoing reformative aspirations of the masses. For example, hues and cries about the application of presidential executive decision has now uncevered unfettered abuse of national wealth, with the certain probability that those involved are bent on covering their tracks. Can those human rights activists consult with their international counterparts to weigh the appropriateness of the decision taken by the presidency. Their protestations seem to be political rather objectively patriotic. By its measures it is reinventing the history of calumny which had dogged Nigeria’s progress over the years – those years are yester-years now because: if there was no such presidential dictate, then one may envisage ‘mob’ justice. It is no longer a matter of concerned individuals relinquishing their ill-gotten wealth, it is also ensuring that the people receive a landmark fundamental satisfaction and conclusion to the fact that a ‘feudal’ group abused their confidence, subjected them to undue penury and got away with it by way of the culprits returning part of what they stole.
Yes, there would have been a different scope to justice if the crimes committed did not impact adversely on humanity, it did, and those victims (indeed, a majority population) would have been short-changed significantly if examples are not made of those currently going through the just punishment for their crimes. If we consider the wholesale rot in the nation’s public, and even private enterprises, the courts are implicated, giving previous attitude to such happenings. This may be the very first effective and efficient anti-corruption campaign by the EFCC since its inception. The courts can not be exonerated either and for Nigerians to receive deserved justice, then presidential executive decision seems to be an appropriate intervention. As may be sensed by all, current discoveries may continue for a very long time before we, as a nation, get to grips with the realities of self and collective discipline and focus on individual and collective contribution toward intellectual, social and economic growth and continual development.