The Buhari administration, especially President Muhammadu Buhari and Attorney General of the Federation ( AGF) and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, should be very careful over the acquittal of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
You may not like the outcome of the judgment, but you must respect the law of the land.
Nnamdi Kanu, should not be spending another minute after court discharge under the custody of the Director-General of Nigeria’s Department of State Services (DSS/SSS), Yusuf Magaji Bichi.
The rule of law demands that blind and careful obedience to the letter of the law is the right thing to do now.
President Buhari and his AGF must know that no one can just disobey the law because no one is above it.
As at the time of writing this note, Nigeria has not turned into a banana republic, where manipulative leaders get away with criminality such as disobeying court rulings.
Everyone, including the President, AGF, and SSS Head, must submit themselves to the rule of law and not act as tyranny of the judiciary.
The Buhari administration must obey the law or be held accountable if they continue to refuse to release Kanu after the court freed him.
Our young democracy may be growing, but it clearly insists that the law be equally, fairly, and consistently applied to all.
The court said it was satisfied that the Buhari administration blatantly violated all known laws when it forcefully sneaked or renditioned Kanu from Kenya to Nigeria in the face of the fact that he was a British citizen who was visiting Kenya.
A three-member panel of the appellate court stated that the Buhari government flouted the Terrorism Act, Extradition Act and also violated international conventions and treaties guiding extraditions all at the same time
Prof. Mike Ozekhome, senior counsel to Nnamdi Kanu, says his client is now a free man and should be allowed to go home to Britain.
President Buhari, with some weeks to go, this is the wrong time for your regime to be testing the will of all Nigerians and international criminal laws.
Remember, with some weeks to go from the presidency followed by a lack of political immunity beyond Nigeria, American Bruce Fein, Kanu Kanu’s international lawyer, could soon pose a legal danger to Buhari, Malami, and Bichi as he will fully take them before the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, in the Hague. And they can’t say no
As noted by Ozekhome, “The single issue bordering on extraordinary rendition, after he was brutally captured, tortured, in Kenya, blindfolded and extrajudicially rendered back to Nigeria…”
With the court discharging Kanu from terrorism charges, Buhari, who felt hurt emotionally or personally from Kanu’s London broadcasts, insulting him by calling him an idiot and stupid. Sir, let it go!
Any way the rightful place to file any case against Kanu is in the United Kingdom, where he did the broadcast calling Buhari a buffoon.
Ozekhome stated “that… Section 45 of the Federal High Court Act and decisions of the supreme court make it clear that you can only try a person in the place where you disclose the venue of the commission of the crime, the time and the circumstances.”
Even if the Buhari regime wants to head to the Supreme Court in the exercise of its right under the country’s body of laws, it must first release Kanu from the police (SSS) cell, which is the wrong custody place to be kept in the first place, and possibly place him in a civil-like monitored environment as he is criminally free, to do less than further shows human rights abuse.
President Buhari, remember despite your dictatorship military background, today’s Nigeria is a signatory to the OAU Convention that it duly ratified, as well as the Charter on Human and People’s Rights, which it said prescribed how a wanted person could be transferred from one country to the other. And due to gross incompetence or ‘I don’t care mentality’ on the part of your legal and judicial hands, human rights rules were cast aside.
The appellate court has ordered that the “appeal succeeds and it is allowed. The ruling of trial Justice (Mrs.) Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court delivered… is hereby set aside.”
President Buhari, the newly sworn in Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, Olukayode Ariwoola, and his co-justices will follow Nigerian law. Believe it.
Kanu has been discharged, acquitted, and ordered to be released from detention. Your administration must obey now or you, along with the AGF and SSS head, will not like how this will end for you locally, nationally and internationally. Sir, stop shaming Nigeria. It has had enough shame. Enough is enough. We can’t continue like this.
John Egbeazien Oshodi, who was born in Uromi, Edo State in Nigeria to a father who served in the Nigeria police for 37 years, is an American based Police/Prison Scientist and Forensic/Clinical/Legal Psychologist. A government consultant on matters of forensic-clinical adult and child psychological services in the USA; Chief Educator and Clinician at the Transatlantic Enrichment and Refresher Institute, an Online Lifelong Center for Personal, Professional, and Career Development. He is a former Interim Associate Dean/Assistant Professor at Broward College, Florida. The Founder of the Dr. John Egbeazien Oshodi Foundation, Center for Psychological Health and Behavioral Change in African Settings In 2011, he introduced State-of-the-Art Forensic Psychology into Nigeria through N.U.C and Nasarawa State University, where he served in the Department of Psychology as an Associate Professor. He is currently a Virtual Behavioral Leadership Professor at ISCOM University, Republic of Benin. Founder of the proposed Transatlantic Egbeazien Open University (TEU) of Values and Ethics, a digital project of Truth, Ethics, and Openness. Over forty academic publications and creations, at least 200 public opinion pieces on African issues, and various books have been written by him. He specializes in psycho-prescriptive writings regarding African institutional and governance issues. His most recent textbook publication is Concise Psychology: An Integrated Forensic Approach to Psychology for Global African Settings.
Prof. Oshodi wrote in via info@teuopen.university
