Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) a media focused Non-Governmental Organization, has faulted the ongoing prosecution at an Abuja Chief Magistrate Court of the senior editorial managers of the Leadership Newspapers even as it described the use of the office of the Director of Public Prosecution in the Federal Ministry of Justice by the Federal Government in the matter as an abuse of power.

HURIWA further affirmed that the charge of treason is anachronistic and constitutionally unsustainable in the law court and is undemocratic.

The Rights Group through its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a media statement criticised the decision of the President to deploy the services of lawyers in the office of the Federal Ministry of Justice paid with tax payers’ money to prosecute his personal and strictly private litigation of alleged defamation.  

HURIWA affirmed that the decision to so use the publicly remunerated Lawyers by the President, Alhaji Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, is an abuse of power and called for the withdrawal of these set of lawyers from the office of the Ministry of Justice because proceeding with the matter with the same set of prosecution counsel will confer undue advantage in favour of President Yar’Adua over and above other bonafide citizens of Nigeria who equally pay their taxes from which these government lawyers are remunerated.

According to HURIWA “the time-tested and time-honoured principle of equity and social justice prescribes the absolute respect to fairness and moral rectitude.

It is unfair, immoral and constitutionally unacceptable for the president to deploy the services of publicly remunerated Legal Counsel to prosecute his private legal matter against other set of Nigerian citizens whose taxes to the Federal Government are drawn to pay the Lawyers who are Civil Servants in the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

If the president deems it appropriate to continue with the matter against these Nigerian Journalists in spite of their profound apologies, then he must hire his private Lawyers”.  

Reminding the Federal Government of Section 150(1) of the 1999 Constitution, the group submitted that the office of the Minister of Justice should not be used by one set of Nigerians against another set of Nigerians in Legal matters that are strictly private and personal because the federal attorney general is not the personal attorney to Mr. President.

The Rights Group stated that the deployment by the president, of the services of the office of the Federal Attorney General to prosecute his personal matter in the court of law is a violation of Section 17(1)(2) (a) of the 1999 Constitution which provides that the state’s social order is founded on ideals of Freedom, Equality and Justice and that every citizens shall have Equality of Rights, Obligations and Opportunities before the law.

The Rights Group advised president Yar’Adua to withdraw the charges against the senior Editors of Leadership Newspapers because of overriding public interest.

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