Abaribe says invasion of Justice Mary Odili’s home is a proof
By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Nigeria is now a bandit country where gestapo tactics reign, fueled by lawless government officials who spew falsehoods to achieve personal agendas, and voters must elect leaders in 2023 who would yank the country off from the jaws of peril.
Senate Minority Leader Enyinnaya Abaribe (PDP, Abia) made this point and warned that unless Nigerians elect leaders to redirect the country, they will continue to regret the day they voted Muhammadu Buhari into office in 2015.
Abaribe, former Abia State Deputy Governor, told TheNiche in an exclusive interview in his office at the National Assembly (NASS) in Abuja that the All Progressives Congress (APC) administration has turned Nigeria into a bandit country.
He lamented the raiding of the Abuja residence of Justice Mary Odili and the subsequent denials by government officials.
“What I make out of the Justice Mary Odili saga is that the APC government has turned Nigeria into a bandit country, where someone will wake up, gather a group of people, obtain a court order, and go to invade the house of one of the highest people in this country ostensibly searching for incriminating materials.
“And on being caught, will turn around and say we were actually sent by a member of this government in high standing,” Abaribe said.
In his view, the matter is made worse by the denial of not only “the member of government in high standing” but also other institutions of government.
“If everybody concerned – the DSS, EFCC, Police, Office of the Attorney General – are saying we don’t know, how can this be possible except if the country is no longer in anybody’s hands?
“It is now whatever you can get away with, and it portends very grave danger to the country and to everybody who lives in this country.
“Because what it means really is that anybody can go and procure anything, show up in my house and say we have come to take you or we have come to search you, or whatever, and you don’t even know and there is no way you can legitimately confirm whether they are real or not.”
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Govt agents raided Odili’s home, says Abaribe
Abaribe agreed with Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike that Odili’s home was raided by agents of the executive arm of government to intimidate the judiciary.
“On that day, we were in a meeting, which involved PDP Governors and the news broke and everybody was calling and Governor Nyesom Wike said he was on his way there and then the other governors were now calling the different heads of the security outfits and everybody was saying, we don’t know. How could that be?
“So, I agree with Governor Wike that it is simply an effort to intimidate the judiciary. In other words, if you can do that to a Supreme Court Justice, then who are the rest of all the judges down the line to the Magistrates?”
The raid, he added, has further diminished Nigeria’s standing in the comity of nations.
“It makes us to look so ridiculous in the eyes of the world. Meanwhile, Nigeria has a Nobel Laureate and Nigerians are all over the world doing wonderful things and this type of thing happens in this country.
“If we don’t have a leadership that comes in to redirect this country, I tell you that all of us will regret the day that we brought this (Buhari) government into being in 2015.”
Removal of Onnoghen as CJN
Abaribe insisted that the judiciary has been consistently assaulted by the Buhari government, recounting events leading to the unconstitutional removal of former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) Walter Onnoghen from office.
Such abuse of the Constitution, he said, has reduced Nigeria to a banana republic.
“It used to be that we will boast to ourselves that Nigeria is not a banana republic.
“Tell me the difference between a banana republic and what has happened. Chief Justice of the nation removed, not following the laws of the country in any way through an inferior legal entity called Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT).
“Decisions of the CCT can be overturned by a High Court because when you appeal the ruling of the CCT, you go to a High Court. So, it is an inferior court.
“Yet the topmost judicial officer in this country was removed by the CCT contrary to what the Constitution says that if you have to remove somebody of that calibre, you must make an address that will come to the Senate of the Federal Republic which will in turn look at the circumstances and vote on it before you can do so.
“Yet, the legislature was by-passed. So, you have a government that has subverted all decency, all rules, all things that are in the Constitution, and some people still think that it doesn’t matter.”
Malami ridicules his office with false statements
Abaribe was incensed by the recent claim of Justice Minister and Attorney General Abubakar Malami that members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) were behind the carnage during the #EndSARS protests in Lagos last year, including the attack on the palace of the oba of Lagos.
“If there is anything that he (Malami) did with that press conference, it is to actually undermine his own position as a Minister of Justice.
“And you could see that since then, it has been a cascade of one wrong step after another till this moment, which doesn’t give the impression of a lot of rigour going into the thinking within that circle before statements are made.
“There is this adage that says it is better that you kept your mouth shut and be thought a fool than to speak and remove all doubt.
“For something that is in the public glare, for something that we still have videos of and even the face of the person who carried the Oba’s staff of office, his name is known, where he is, is known, and then somebody now comes, makes a press conference several months after and now says oh, it is this other people.
“You could see that what he did was simply to ridicule his office. I guess he forgot the demands of that office, which includes that you are also a public defender.”
- Visit www.thenicheng.com on Tuesday, November 23, to read the full interview
