The President General of Umbrella organisation of Ndigbo, the Ohanaeze, John Nnia Nwodo has warned the federal Government that it is heating up the polity by the needless action it is taking against the Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN.
The President General said that legal opinion did not support the action and therefore should not have been contemplated at all.
In a statement personally signed by Nwodo, he said Ohanaeze was shocked and disappointed with the decision of the Federal government of Nigeria, acting through the Code of Conduct Bureau to prosecute the Chief Justice of Nigeria.
He noted that there were a plethora of legal opinion, that the action was premature and ill conceived following an extant Court of Appeal decision which interprets the procedure for prosecuting judicial officers.
“This procedure has not been followed. The fact that the National Judicial Council has been ignored is not just illegal but suggests deliberate court shopping and a predetermined objective,” he said.
On the issue of the CJN stepping aside while the case before the CCT is prosecuted, the President General said that “a perusal of some of the depositions in the charge sheet also shows a completely distorted conception of the regulations pertaining to the declaration of assets. Assets acquired after assumption of office are declared at the end of a public official’s tenure in order to present a comparison with assets declared on assumption of office.”
The statement said further: “The Federal government is heating up the polity. Not long ago we were entertained with all sorts of interpretations of the Vice President’s powers while the President is on leave. The GMD of the NNPC was accused of violating laws pertaining to the award of contracts. Because he comes from a protected ethnic group and class, no investigation was conducted.
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“Fulani herdsman killed 110 natives of Nimbo, in Enugu State. Police investigations led to the arrest of some of the herdsman with their telephone pictures of the carnage but not one has been prosecuted.
“The same carnage took place in Benue State. Pictures of the murderers wearing the uniform of the choir members of a Catholic church where they murdered their priests and members of their congregation were all over the social media. No one was arrested or prosecuted.
“Their sponsors, Miyetti Allah, addressed a press conference recently extolling their ethnic agenda and making decisive and inciting statements. Not one of them was arrested. This shows the insensitiveness of the Federal government to respect for our constitution. Its patronage of double standards in the enforcement of the law is sickening and abhorrent. If these developments are taken together with the obvious rigging regulations approved by INEC, we fear that our country is about to be thrown into a needless political instability.”
