(Onitsha Nigeria, 20th of June 2016)-The Southeast Based
Coalition of Human Rights Organizations (SBCHROs) comprising: Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties
Organization (CLO), Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy (CHRPA), Human
Rights Club (a project of LRRDC)(HRC), Forum for Justice, Equity & Defense
of Human Rights (FJEDHR), Society Advocacy Watch Project (SPAW), Anambra Human
Rights Forum (AHRF), Southeast Good Governance Forum (SGGF), International
Solidarity for Peace & Human Rights Initiative (ITERSOLIDARITY) and Igbo
Ekunie Initiative (pan Igbo rights advocacy group) have joined other Nigerians and the
international community in thanking God for sparing the precious life of
Nigeria’s President, Gen Muhammadu Buhari and facilitating his quick recovery
from a diagnosed ill-health or sickness. Though President Muhammadu Buhari
personally and vicariously has no regard for sanctity of human life and dignity
of human person, but we are thankful to God for saving his precious life and
providing him a divine opportunity to make amends, particularly to end his self
inflicted and self invited presidential violence and dictatorship currently on
rampage in Nigeria.
President
Muhammadu Buhari’s one year old presidency has been marked by turbulence
grounded in presidential violence and dictatorship of alarming proportion.
Borrowing from Intersociety’s updated
grounded statistics, over 4500 innocent
and unarmed citizens have been killed since June 2015 following the swearing in
of President Muhammadu Buhari as Nigeria’s sixth civil President on 29th
of May 2015; out of which over 1300 were
killed by the security forces under conditions and manners unknown to the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, relevant regional and
international rights and humanitarian treaties entered into by Nigeria as well
as other key provisions of international
law including the basic standards of the international law and the principles
and purposes of the United Nations.
Over 3200 others
were killed by violent non State actors whose violent activities are condoned,
aided and abetted by the Buhari’s Presidency (i.e. Fulani Janjaweed). In all
these, the Presidency of Gen Muhammadu Buhari is personally and vicariously
culpable, following its refusal, till date, to fish out the perpetrators
including its serving security chiefs and bring them to justice. Others who
died untimely following harsh economic, governance and security policies of the
Buhari administration in the past one year are in their thousands.
Apart from the
presidential violence of alarming proportion unleashed on Nigerians, the lives,
liberties and self determination endowments of all Nigerians are violently
dictated and eroded by the Presidency of Gen Muhammadu Buhari. Over 98%
policies of the Buhari administration are utterly vindictive, primordial,
selective, discriminatory, sectional and enemy prone. The list of such harsh
policies is in-exhaustive; from anti corruption to security policies; federal
office appointment and promotion to distribution of federal resources policies;
and from citizens protection and welfare (if any) to general governance of the
country policies. The Buhari administration is also an arch ethnic hater, hate
speech promoter and ethnic cleanser.
In the area of
citizens’ liberties and rule of law, the Buhari administration has completely
abandoned the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and brought back through the back door the infamous Decree
2 of 1984 and its sister Decree 4 of 1984 with which enemy-citizens
and others labeled corrupt, are arrested and detained for long periods frowned at
and disallowed by the 1999 Constitution and the African Charter on Human &
Peoples Rights, which Nigeria signed, ratified and domesticated in 1983 and
judicially cemented per Supreme Court in 2000. The Buhari administration is
also gravely guilty of criminal stigmatization and
bastardization of criminal justice and its procedures in Nigeria.
Under the above
infamy, the Presidency of Gen Muhammadu Buhari has created and sustained an
unwritten death code for Nigerian security forces, under which citizens
of Nigeria exercising nonviolently and peacefully their natural rights to self
determination, existence, identity and development are shot at sight and
massacred particularly when they embark on nonviolent and constitutional
assemblies. Under the code of infamy, not less than 200
members of the Igbo Ethnic Nationality exercising the natural rights above
mentioned, which Nigeria willingly negotiated and entered into regionally and
internationally; have been massacred since August 2015, with over 300 others
inflicted with various degrees of deadly gunshot injuries. Over 700 members of
the Shiite Muslim sect were also massacred in Zaria in December 2015 by
Nigerian soldiers.
There also
exists in the Buhari’s violent Presidency criminal pretrial detention policy,
with which enemy-citizens and others labeled corrupt are hounded in
detention periods far above constitutionally stipulated period. Through the
re-introduction via back door of Decree 2 of 1984 and its sister Decree
4 of 1984, the relevant provisions of the 1999 Constitution such as
Section 35 (right to personal liberty) and Sections 293, 294 and 296 of the Administration
of Criminal Justice Act 2015 are brazenly corrupted and bastardized.
The clear and unambiguous definition and categorization of crimes by Nigeria’s
Criminal Code Act of 2004 and the Penal Code of 2004 has also been corrupted
and bastardized by the Buhari administration.
The above Codes
clearly categorized crimes in Nigeria into felonies, misdemeanors and simple
offenses. While felonies such as treason, terrorism, murder, armed robbery,
abduction, rape, arson, burglary and aggravated assault, etc, attract on
conviction three years to life imprisonment or death; misdemeanors such as
fraud, embezzlement of public funds, money laundering, assault, etc, attract on
conviction one year to three years imprisonment. Simple offenses such as statutory
and strict liability offenses (i.e. traffic and sanitary offenses) attract on
conviction less than one year imprisonment.
Procedurally,
Section 35 (4) of the 1999 Constitution clearly sets constitutional limits
within which citizens can be legally held before being charged to court or
tried. The Constitution even leniently gives the criminal investigators long
periods of detention of their suspects accused of committing capital offenses
(i.e. offenses carrying death penalty or life jail on conviction) such as
terrorism, armed robbery, abduction, murder and treason by providing them with
up to three months detention before charge or trial, to be strictly terminated
after three months if such detained citizens are not granted and released on
bail or tried in courts of competent jurisdictions.
Those detained over corruption or bureaucratic
crimes charges, which are strictly misdemeanor in nature; are not supposed to
be detained beyond 48 hours without charge. This is on account of the fact that
no much mental interrogation and mental evidence sourcing is required. Pieces
of evidence required to charge and prosecute bureaucratic or corruption accused
citizens are paper or bureaucratic based. It is on account of the foregoing
that Sections 293, 294 and 296 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act of
2015 are provided; setting legal limits within which citizens can be detained
without charge; situated in the minimum of 28 days and maximum of 42 days,
strictly under a magistrate court remand. Section 296 specifically assumed that
failure to bring detained citizens to trial after 28days or 42days of pretrial
detention; unambiguously means that such detained citizens have no case to
answer, which is why the same Section expressly directs for discharge
and acquittal of such unlawfully detained citizens if their captors
failed to charge them within the stipulated periods and that no
such charges shall be brought against such citizens again in any court in
Nigeria.
Sadly, these
sacred and unambiguous constitutional and legal provisions have been observed
in grave and gross breach by the dictatorial presidency of Gen Muhammadu
Buhari. While the sacred provisions above mentioned see penalties for crimes in
Nigeria as reformative, transformative and rehabilitative, the Buhari
administration sees it as crude punishment and pursuit of vendetta and enmity.
Dozens of Nigerians have been arrested and detained far beyond constitutionally
stipulated periods over charges mostly bordering on crimes of misdemeanor
(corruption), which on conviction, attract maximum of three years imprisonment.
Such crimes are also easily and administratively bailable.
Shockingly, the
Presidency of Gen Muhaamadu Buhari has observed these in gross breach by obtaining
kangaroo magistrate court detention orders from compromised magistrates,
detaining the detained citizens as much as 90 days or more, contrary to the
1999 Constitution and its ACJ Act of 2015, Criminal Code Act of 2004 and Penal
Code of 2004. Detained citizens with
phantom accusation of treason and terrorism, etc, have also been held in
detention for over six months since their arrest. Strong evidence abounds
showing gross presidential interference in their bail applications and
proceedings. Those of them granted bail by courts have never been released from
detention and the Federal Government has kept on trampling on their fundamental
human rights with reckless abandon till date.
Instances
abound. Mr. Azibaola Roberts and his wife, Stella, were arrested by EFCC on 23rd
of March 2016. While his wife was granted administrative bail by the EFCC, Mr.
Azibaola Roberts was detained for over 80days before being charged on 7th
of June 2016. They are accused of a $40million money laundering fraud and were
given harsh bail conditions of N500million each, which are yet to be met till
date. Col Nicholas Achinze is a former ADC to Col Sambo Dasuki. He was arrested
by the Nigerian Army and the EFCC on 23rd of December 2015 and
detained for 13 weeks or 3 months and seven days without charge or under any
specified criminal allegation. He spent five weeks in army custody from where
he was transferred to the EFCC custody where he was further detained for eight
weeks or two months without charge before he was released under duress by his
captors in late March 2016. Barr Femi Fani-Kayode has been in criminal
detention of the EFCC for 41 days or a month and eleven days over an allegation
of monetary fraud. He was arrested on 9th of May 2016. He is one of
the leading critics of the Buhari administration.
Retired Col
Sambo Dasuki has been in detention since 1st of December 2015; a
period of over seven months. He was arrested in connection with an allegation of
$2.1billion military equipment procurement scandal. Despite several court bails
and orders for his release on bail and despite meeting the bail conditions, the
Buhari administration has adamantly refused to obey or comply with such
judicial pronouncements till date and he has remained in perpetual confinement.
Citizen Nnamdi Kanu (POC) has been in unjust detention since 14th of
October 2015; a period of over eight months or over 240 days. Till date, his
trial over phantom treason allegation is yet to be fully commenced and all the
bails granted to him by courts have been disobeyed by the administration of Gen
Muhammadu Buhari. The President, himself, has publicly vowed to “rot the duo of
Sambo Dasuki and Nnamdi Kanu in jail” at all costs, using brazen executive
interference in their court processes and proceedings.
The worst and
inexplicable of it all is continuing solitary and incommunicado detention of
the leader of the Shiite Muslim sect in Nigeria; Malam Ibrahim Zaky el-Zaky
since December 2015; a period of over seven months. Till date, Malam Zaky
el-Zaky is not facing any trial known to the 1999 Constitution and its criminal
laws. Despite having body shattered and lacerated by soldiers in the violent
entourage of COAS, Lt Gen Turkur Buratai, with live bullets during the last
December massacre of over 700 of his followers, the Buhari administration has
continued to detain him dead or alive, outside any known and written law in
Nigeria and without any form of criminal charge.
Pieces of strong
evidence also abound, showing and exposing the Buhari administration’s contempt
to dissent voices, free speeches and political tolerance and pluralism.
Selective arrest, detention and prosecution of citizens accused of committing
the so called “corruption crimes”, is a clear case in point. While Nigeria’s
mainstream CSOs and their leaders, dominant in Lagos State and the Southwest
region of Nigeria, have been bottled or coerced by the Buhari administration
into “pro-establishment activists”; those who are still courageous enough to
challenge and speak against the excesses of the administration, are threatened and
marked out as enemy-citizens. In this category includes Deputy Senate President,
Barr Ike Ekweremadu, Citizen Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyer, Barr Ifeanyi Ejiofor, and Barr Nnamdi Nwokocha, who is in court,
seeking to compel President Muhammadu Buhari and WAEC to clear controversies
surrounding the former’s West African Senior Secondary School Certificate or
WAEC.
Barr Ifeanyi
Ejiofor, on his part, is facing persecution of the Buhari administration from
right, left and center over his conscientious insistence not to compromise and betray
the trust and confidence of his client; Citizen Nnamdi Kanu, which the Buhari
administration is forcing him to do. Petitions from the Federal Government to
his professional constituency and other quarters are flying from right, left
and center. Apart from government sponsored hostile media onslaughts against
Barr Nnamdi Nwokocha, over his suit against the existence or otherwise of
President Muhammadu Buhari’s WAEC Certificate, he has also been presidentially
threatened with a law suit, for “declaring Mr. President guilty on the pages of
the newspaper”. Some activist lawyers of yesterday now
bottled by the Buhari administration, have abandoned the masses and taken up
professional briefs in defense of the President in his WAEC controversies.
The Deputy
Senate President, on his part, is also not spared. While there are mountainous
cases of uninvestigated and un-prosecuted individual and group homicides and
other high profile regime atrocities in Nigeria, the Nigeria Police Force and
the Office of the Attorney of the Federation are busy wasting public resources
and energies on mere legislative rules and regulations (National Assembly
rules), which are largely unknown to Nigeria’s criminal justice administration
and the Constitution. Till date, most, if not all the culprits in the Nimbo and
Agatu massacres are still on the prowl; likewise the perpetrators of the Zaria
Shiites Massacre and the pro Biafran massacres of 2015 and 2016 in Onitsha, Aba
and Asaba. Yet, the like of Deputy Senate President, who has strongly condemned
the massacres, is being targeted for political humiliation and persecution,
using the so called “Senate Rules Forgery”, which adds little or no value to
the growth and advancement of Nigeria’s criminal justice administration.
It is therefore
our position that the divine recovery from recent ill-health by President Muhammadu
Buhari is a divine and possibly the last opportunity of the President to make
amends and end his presidential violence and dictatorship in Nigeria. The
President is hereby called upon to truly dedicate his speedy recovery to God
and people of Nigeria and change from his administration’s violent and
dictatorial approaches to democratic governance. It will be too dicey for
President Muhammadu Buhari to continue in his old and crude governance way and
he may most likely not have this type of opportunity again. One way to achieve
these is for the Buhari administration to embark on holistic policy reversal
and take a total recourse to citizen-governance and sovereignty
as a responsibility. The sanctity of the pluralistic and secular
composition of Nigeria must be respected and upheld at all times.
Signed:
For: Southeast Based Coalition of Human
Rights Organizations (SBCHROs)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Leader SBCHROs &
Board Chair, Intersociety
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Comrade Aloysius Attah, Chair, Anambra
CLO & Head, Publicity, SBCHROs
Mobile Line: +2348035090548
Jerry Chukwuokoro, PhD, Head, Research & Strategy,
SBCHROs
Mobile Line: +2348035372962
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