{"id":22961,"date":"2019-12-09T12:11:49","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T11:11:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=22961"},"modified":"2019-12-09T12:11:49","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T11:11:49","slug":"22961-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/?p=22961","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Our attention has been drawn to the self contradictory press release of the SSS in which an unsuccessful attempt was made to absolve itself of responsibility for the armed invasion of the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division, in general, and the desecration of Court No 7 of Hon. Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu in particular as well as the illegal rearrest of Omoyele Sowore.
\nFirst, pretending to forget that the abominable desecration of the Federal High Court was covered live by domestic and international media outfits and journlists, some of whom were also direct victims of the gangsterism, barbarism and brutalisation displayed by officers of the Service on the 6th day of December 2019, the Service has conducted \u201ceye witness\u201d accounts of what transpired with the aim of showing that officers of the Service were not involved in the rearrest of Sowore.
\nSecond, the Service argues on the one hand that the arrest of Sowore was \u201cstage managed\u201d by his supporters in order to give the Service a bad name whilst also admitting at the same time that officers of the Service arrested Sowore outside the Court.
\nHaving declared that the Service arrested Sowore \u201coutside the court\u201d, despite the \u201cstage managing\u201d argument, what the Nigerian people want to see happen is the immediate release of Sowore, pending his trial as ordered by the court.
\nINDUBITABLE FACTS CONFIRMING DESECRATION OF COURT AND RE-ARREST BY THE SERVICE<\/strong>
\nHowever, the following facts underscore our insistence that the Service was solely responsible for the desecration of the hallowed chambers of the court: By the advantage of information technology, the whole world has placed responsibility for the gangsteric desecration of the court on the SSS.
\nThe SSS cannot extricate itself from the abominable acts of 6th December, 2019.
\nWhen I informed the court that fresh charges were being filed against our clients and that they could be re-arrested, the prosecution denied any such plan.
\nAs soon as the case was adjourned the SSS pounced on Sowore and caused a disruption of the proceedings of the court.
\nHaving taken over the court room vi et armis Justice Ojukwu hurriedly rose and asked the Registrar to adjourn all other cases.
\nAfter the learned trial judge had risen for the day she summoned the heads of the prosecution and defence teams to her chambers.
\nWhen the lead prosecutor, Dr. Liman Hassan SAN denied knowledge of the invasion of her court she directed him to invite the head of the SSS team in the court.
\nWhen challenged to justify the invasion of the court the officer could not. He apologised to Justice Ojukwu on behalf of the SSS.
\nThe judge then directed the officer to withdraw the SSS operatives from the court room. The directive was complied with as the operatives withdrew from the court room but rushed out to join their colleagues who had taken over the entire court house.
\nNotwithstanding that the SSS could not produce any warrant of arrest for Sowore, the defence team decided that I should accompany him to the SSS headquarters in view of his physical brutalisation inside the court room and the open threat to his life.
\nI did and ensured that he was driven in my car to the SSS headquarters where I handed him over to the officers on duty.
\nThereafter, I requested for a meeting with the head of the SSS but I was informed that he was not in the office.
\nThough, ordinarily, officers of the Service do not wear any uniform, on the 6th day of December, some of them were in mufti, many were not only armed but also masked while others disguised in lawyer\u2019s black and white suit.
\nRegardless of the form of appearance, the officers of the Service inside Court No. 7 were identifiable by their roles and acts of seizing Sowore and pinning him down.
\nIt is an utter poor reasoning to say that Sowore\u2019s supporters were also those bent on injuring him in order to arrest him.
\nThe argument of the Service in this respect is as unfortunate and pitiable as the earlier argument of the Service in respect of the Late Chief Gani Fawehinmi who was once accused of wanting to set ablaze his own house.
\nIf Sowore\u2019s supporters subjected him to such brutalisation in the presence of SSS operatives why were they not arrested for contravening the provisions of the Anti Torture Act, 2017? Or were the SSS operatives expecting the supporters of a defendant wanted by the State to kill him in their presence?
\nBefore submitting himself for arrest Sowore had rightly demanded for a warrant of arrest and detention order but the SSS operatives were unable to produce either.
\nON RATIONALISATION OF RE-ARREST OF SOWORE BY THE SERVICE<\/strong>
\nIn rationalizing the re-arrest of Sowore, which is denied in the same Press statement, the Serivce alleged that Sowore held metings with some people.
\nAssuming without conceding that Sowore held meetings with some people in Transcorp Hotel as alleged by the SSS, why did the Prosecution not inform the trial court that the defendant had breached his bail condition?
\nON THE CLAIM OF THE SERVICE THAT IT IS LAW-ABIDING<\/strong>
\nThe SSS says it is a law abiding institution. But why did it refuse to comply with the order of Justice Taiwo to release Sowore? Why did the SSS threaten to report the judge to the NJC for granting bail to Sowore? Why did the SSS subject the order of Justice Ojukwu for the release of Sowore to its own approval by asking the sureties already verified by the judge to report themselves to the SSS? Why the SSS wait for the 24-hour ultimatum issued by the trial judge before releasing Sowore and Bakare?
\nIncidentally, the current prosecutor, Dr. Liman Hassan SAN, was the counsel to the defendant in the case of FRN v Air Commodore Mohammed. In that case the order of Justice Nnamdi Dimgba for the release of the defendant on bail was flouted by the SSS.
\nAs if that was not enough, the SSS invaded the home of the judge on 8th October 2016 when the houses of judges accused of corruption were raided.
\nEven though I have never appeared before Justice Dimgba I have always known him as a judge of impecable integrity. So, I challenged the SSS for painting an incorruptible judge with the brush of shame. It was after my intervention that the NJC gave the judge a clean bill of health.
\nThereafter, the judge was compelled to withdraw from the case.
\nThe SSS thought that it had won but it was a phyrric victory. Thus, Justice John Tsoho (current Chief Judge of the federal high court) to whom the case was re assigned reiterated the orders of Justice Dimgba and proceeded to rule that trial would not commence in the case until the defendant was released from custody.
\nIt was at that stage that the SSS complied with the order of the federal high court.
\nCONCLUSION<\/strong>
\nIn the light of the foregoing, we reiterate our demand for the release of not only Sowore in obedience to court orders, pending the verdict of the court in their trial.
\nWe equally call for the release of all other political detainees, and criminal sispects who have been admitted to bail pending trial by competent courts.
\nFinally, it is common knowledge that this country was ruled by military dictators for about three decades. On no occassion did security operatives invade court premises to arrest political activists inside a court room.
\nTherefore, the bizzaire harassment of courts cannot be tolerated under a democratically government that claims to operate under the rule of law.
\nFemi Falana, SAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Our attention has been drawn to the self contradictory press release of the SSS in which an unsuccessful attempt was made to absolve itself of responsibility for the armed invasion of the Federal High Court, Abuja Judicial Division, in general, and the desecration of Court No 7 of Hon. Justice Ijeoma Ojukwu in particular as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22898,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5777,7],"tags":[416,170,305],"class_list":["post-22961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-features","category-news","tag-court-invasion","tag-sowore","tag-sss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22961\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}