The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has faulted an Abuja High Court for granting an exparte injunction restraining the publishing of an autobiography authored by former President, Olusegun Obasanjo which he titled, My Watch.
The association, in a statement issued yesterday by its National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko and National Media Affairs Director, Zainab Yusuf, described the Court order as an attempt to dabble into the arena of partisan politics and muzzle freedom of expression.
The statement held that; “In the considered thinking of the HURIWA, any Nigerian who feels that his/her reputation is tarnished by the contents of the book written by erstwhile President Obasanjo should do any of the two options – go to court to file a case of libel or do your version of the story told in this latest book by Olusegun Obasanjo.”
It further requested the Chairman of the National Judicial Council, NJC, and the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Mahmud Muhammad “to immediately activate mechanism to clean up the Aegean stable in the judiciary and stop judges from issuing baseless exparte orders which has created spectacular public image deficit for the Nigerian Judicial system over the past couple of years.”
HURIWA frowned at what it termed ”an attempt by the court to stop Obasanjo’s exercise of his constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of expression and right to fair hearing as enshrined in chapter four of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria through the issuance of the “inexplicable and heavily one- sided court injunction”.
Calling for the rejection of any court’s attempt and/or action that appeared to be anti-intellectual, it justified its call by describing the order as an attempt to return Nigeria to the disgraceful days of military dictatorship and tyranny through the back door.
HURIWA lampooned the “belated injunction” from the court, arguing that it was “immoral and disgusting for a court of law to involve itself in a bitter intra-party squabbles by seeking to halt the publication and circulation of a book written by a Nigerian who has the unfettered fundamental right to freedom of expression.”
While observing that the protection of fundamental freedom of expression was the very basis for the existence of democracy and the principle of the rule of law, the association said it was inconceivable that a judge could have attempted to stop an act that was already completed. It however encouraged Nigerians who perceived his or her reputation as injured or tarnished by the contents of the book to institute an appropriate libel case in a competent court of law, rather than engage in an exercise in futility.
The statement continues, “We are all living witnesses to the gross abuses that exparte motions were subjected to by politicians only in the recent past and these frequently abused privileged orders of the court which is seen largely as a professional ambush against respondents who ought to be properly served and put on notice and so it is imperative that the hierarchy of the nation’s judiciary takes immediate and effective action to check the abuse of exparte applications by litigants.
“We have not forgotten that it was also by the abuse of exparte application for an injunction from an Abuja High Court obtained by mid -night by the notorious Association for a better Nigeria [ABN] that truncated the planned transition to civil rule during the General Babangida’s regime when the now martyred Icon of democracy Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola was coasting home with victory in the popularly acclaimed free and fair Presidential election of June 12, 1993.
“We completely reject any court injunction that seeks to keep Nigerians perpetually in information and intellectual darkness regarding the undercurrents of our politics especially in the contemporary times. Indeed the court of law should give judgements that will promote the exercise of the constitutionally guaranteed freedoms as encapsulated in the nation’s supreme body of laws,” the body asserted.
DAILY POST recalls that a Federal High Court, presided over by Justice Valentine Ashi, had last Wednesday found Obasanjo guilty of contempt, after he defied its directive restraining him from releasing a memoir written by him.
Justice Ashi had ordered that the book launch be put on hold over claims that the three-volume series contained details of a libel case already before the Court. The case in question borders on a drug trafficking allegations the former president leveled against a PDP leader in the South-west, Chief Buruji Kashamu.
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