…asks court to stop EFCC, ICPC from arresting him

By Ise-Oluwa Ige

ABUJA— The impeached Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State, Peremobowei Ebebi, yesterday initiated a legal action before a Federal high court sitting in Abuja to secure an order declaring as alive and subsisting his constitutional immunity against arrest, detention and prosecution pending determination of his two separate suits challenging the validity of his impeachment.

Ebebi who is presently before the Bayelsa State high court to void the process leading to his alleged removal from office is also asking for an order stopping two vociferous anti-graft agencies in the country, including EFCC and ICPC from arresting, detaining or prosecuting him based on any petition or alleged criminal offence that might be levelled against him pending determination of his two suits in Yenagoa.

He said he though appreciated the fact that the anti-graft agencies had the statutory duty to arrest anybody suspected to have committed offence or likely to commit offence, he said the two commissions should be barred from moving against him on the ground that the constitutional immunity donated to him by section 308 of the 1999 constitution still subsists until his impeachment is declared valid in law.

The cited constitutional provision shields 74 political office holders in the country from arrest, detention and prosecution while holding office.

The section presumes that even if the political office holder commit criminal offence while his tenure lasts, he should only be tried after expiration of his terms of office so as not to distract him since time does not run against the state.

The constitutional provision has been subjected to a critical debate but it is still the law, having not being amended.

Ebebi who is claiming that his constitutional immunity is still running notwithstanding his impeachment, now  under review by courts.