President Muhammadu Buhari has given reasons why his government has refused to release former National Security Adviser, Col (rtd) Sambo Dasuki, and Coordinator of Indigenous Peoples of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, despite several court directives to the contrary.
Obviously the President prefers dictatorial self-help, riding roughshod over the rights of suspects presumed innocent till proved guilty rather than obey valid court orders as the Constitution demands of all citizens.
Dasuki is facing trial for allegedly diverting about $2.9 billion meant for arms procurement for the anti-Boko Haram war which he shared to politicians and cronies as ordered by ex-president Goodluck Jonathan, among others. On Wednesday, he was re-arrested by the Department of State Service after he had been granted bail by three different courts.
Similarly, Kanu, who is spearheading the quest for an independent nation of Biafra, was earlier granted bail by a Federal High Court in Abuja, but he was also re-arrested by the DSS, which slammed a fresh charge of treasonable felony against him.
Speaking during his first Presidential Media Chat at Aso Rock Villa in Abuja on Wednesday, Buhari said the two accused persons cannot be allowed to enjoy any form of freedom due to the enormity of their offences.
“”If you see the atrocities these people committed against this country, we can’t allow them to jump bail,” he said.
But it is unclear why the government’s prosecutors would not present their weihty evidence to the court to ask for denial of bail as democracy demands rather than the manipulative trial in the media.
Thus, Buhari accused Dasuki of sharing government’s money as he liked or was ordered by Jonathan. “They would just say to Central Bank give so and so, N40 billion just like that; 40 billion!” he said.
He also said it would be bad to allow Dasuki “travel to London to see his doctor” arguing, “What of the over two million people displaced, most of them orphans whose fathers have been killed, what type of government do you want to run? We cannot allow that.”
However, the need to remove arbitrariness from adjudication – whereby politicians choose which court order it is convenient to obey and which to treat with executive rascality – for fair trials all the time demands subjecting all trials to the same balance of justice.
About Nnamdi Kanu, the President said despite having two international passports, one for Britain and the other for Nigeria, Kanu “did not use any of them to come into the country”.
He also said the IPOB leader smuggled in broadcast equipment with which he came in to preach hate messages.
-Premium Times