A civil Rights body- HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has described as a monumental injustice the decision by President Muhammadu Buhari through his Justice minister Abubakar Malami to parade masked witnesses against Mr Nnamdi Kanu the leader of the Europe registered Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Director of United Kingdom based Radio Biafra.
The Rights group
has also criticised Justice Binta Murtallah Nyako for bragging that the Federal
High Court room is hers and therefore she can do whatever or issue whatever
order she deems appropriate just as the group said the presiding judge can't go
outside the provisions of the Constitution in reaching a determination of
any prayer at any given stage of the subsisting matter because doing otherwise
would be illegal and absolutely non-permissible by law.
HURIWA
reminded the judge, Mrs Binta Murtallah-Nyako the fourth wife of the embattled
former Adamawa state governor Murtallah Nyako facing criminal charges
over fraud, that the global community is watching her proceedings even as
generations yet unborn will judge her conducts and decisions which would have
far reaching implications in whatever legacies she intends to build.
Besides, HURIWA
stressed that it is an unmitigated crime against natural law for
the Federal High Court to have disregarded the constitutionally guaranteed
human rights of the defendants to fair hearing and open trial just in a
choreographed attempt to railroad the accused into prison to satisfy the
wishes, whims and capricious intentions of President Muhammadu Buhari who has
on many occasions in the media passed a verdict against Mr Nnamdi Kanu and his
organisation as having committed 'serious crime' against his government.
The Rights group
further stated that the ruling by the Federal High Court to shield the
identities of witnesses who would testify against Mr Daniel Kanu is reminiscent
of kangaroo trial process used during the brutal dictatorships that held
Nigerians in bondage for over four decades prior to 1999 when overwhelming
global pressures forced the coup plotters to vacate political offices,
restored political and democratic order and proceeded to return to
their military barracks.
"We totally
condemn Justice Binta Murtallah Nyako for granting this awkward and
unconstitutional prayers of President Muhammadu Buhari which will in the long
run deny the defendants and the rest of the citizenry the right to witness an
open, transparent, accountable and clean judicial process since the matter
involving the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) versus Muhammadu Buhari ruling
elite has since become a national phenomenon in which every citizen of Nigeria
is keen to know how the entire scenarios are resolved. The plot to present
masked witnesses is both anachronistic and antithetical to moral, and ethical
justice. This can only happen in banana republics or failed political entities
whereby military might is right".
"We in
the human rights community believe that the claim by the leader of the
Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mr. Nnamdi Kanu, of a plot by the Federal
Government to invite foreign personnel to testify against him in court is
extensively damaging and from the trajectories of events since the legal
ordeals of Mr Nnamdi Kanu started it is not farfetched to notice that indeed
the Presidency which has been on an overdrive to jail the IPOB officials by
hook or crook may have actually perfected plans to import ghost witnesses to
rope the accused into a phantom crime of treasonable felony. This illegality
which has made the current administration a laughing stock in the international
community of civilised people must be challenged and overturned on
appeal."
HURIWA recalled
that Mr Nnamdi Kanu, who is currently facing trial alongside three other Biafra
agitators, Mr. Chidiebere Onwudiwe, Benjamin Madubugwu and David Nwawuisi
publicly made the allegation on the very day he was denied bail by Justice
Binta Nyako of the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court.
The trial Justice
Binta refused to grant bail to any of the defendants pending the determination
of the 11-count criminal charge the Federal Government preferred against them.
Charges against Kanu and other defendants border on treasonable felony and
their alleged involvement in acts of terrorism. She equally granted the
government the prayer to present masked witnesses.
HURIWA has
therefore urged the legal team representing the IPOB hierarchy to file an
appeal without let nor hindrance just as the group has appealed to all right
thinking persons to call President Buhari to order so as to terminate this
kangaroo persecution of Mr Nnamdi Kanu and his colleagues.
HURIWA said the
trial of Nnamdi Kanu must be terminated because the agitation by IPOB for self
determination for South East of Nigeria finds legal basis in extant
global humanitarian laws and for the practical facts that the members of IPOB
are absolutely peaceful and not known to carry arms or weapons unlike the
several rampaging gangs of armed Fulani herdsmen who have killed thousands of
Nigerians but are left by the Nigerian Military to continue their dare
devil atrocities against innocent citizens.