The President of Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) Abubakar Balarabe Mahmoud, SAN, has asked the federal government to immediately release judges arrested by the Department of State Services, DSS.
Mahmud made the call in Lagos on Saturday at a press conference attended by past presidents including Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, Olisa Agbakoba SAN, JB Daudu SAN. Others are former Secretary, Dele Adesina SAN, Kemi Pinheirro SAN, Kanyinsola Ajayi SAN, Yusuf Ali SAN and Monday Ubani.
He condemned “the raids in the strongest possible terms.”
“We are in a democratic society and we cannot accept a situation where armed, masked SSS operatives invade homes of the justices of the Supreme Court and judges of our high courts.
“This is a ploy by the executive to intimidate the judiciary and we will not accept it. The NBA will not accept it. I want to emphasise again that we’re not under military rule and we cannot accept this Gestapo style of operations.
“We demand that President Muhammadu Buhari should call his security agencies to order as this kind of practice is not acceptable under a democratic rule.
“If there are issues affecting judicial officers, there are established processes and procedures for handling them and we demand these constitutional processes must be obeyed.
“I have declared a state of emergency on the legal profession over the matter and I have invited past presidents and secretary generals of the association to follow up on the matter”, he said.
Declaring that the NBA will go to any length to protect the sanctity of the judiciary, Mahmoud added that “There will be grave consequences if the judges are not released immediately”.
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