By Vincent Ujumadu

Awka—A member  of the legal team of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mr. Johnmary Jideobi has written President Muhammadu Buhari on the continued disobedience of court order as it concerned the release of the IPOB leader.

Jideobi, in the letter, said that by constitutional structuring and operation of Nigerian laws, the Department of State Service (DSS) and all military and para-military agencies were under the president’s ultimate control and command as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and should therefore react when laws were flouted.

He recalled that the Federal High Court had, on December 17, 2015, delivered a ruling on the application brought by Kanu, adding that in the said ruling, a sacred order was solemnly pronounced against the DSS to the effect that Kanu should be released unconditionally, having been admitted to bail.

Jideobi said: “The decisions of the Federal High Court, the National Industrial Court, a High Court and of all other courts established by the Nigerian Constitution shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons, and by other courts of law with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Federal High Court, the National Industrial Court, a High Court and those other Courts.

“The discernible constitutional duty that has crystallized on your shoulders as eventuating from the provision of the law is to enforce the decisions of the Federal High Court, such as the one made by Justice Ademola J. on the 17th December, 2015.

”Obedience to orders of courts is fundamental to the peace and stability of the Nigerian nation. The ugly alternative is a painful recrudescence of triumph of brute force or anarchy, a resort to our old system of settlement by means of bow and arrows, machetes and guns.

“Disobedience to an order of court should, therefore, be seen as an offence directed not against the personality of the Judge who made the order, but as a calculated act of subversion of peace, law, and order in Nigeria..

“Obedience to every order of court is a duty which every citizen who believes in peace and stability of the Nigerian State owes to the nation. To allow court orders to be disobeyed would be to tread the road toward anarchy.

“If orders of the court can be treated with disrespect, the whole administration of justice is brought into scorn…If the remedies that the court grants to correct wrongs can be ignored, then, there will be nothing left for each person, but to take the law into his own hands

“The continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, despite a subsisting order of court to the contrary, has satisfied all the ingredients of the definition ascribed to a contemnor who our Supreme Court adjudges to be an anarchist, terminator of democracy and enemy of order, peace and stability of Nigeria. Indeed, this is a shameful toga that is most unworthy of any occupant of the number one office in our Republic as ordained by our Constitution.

“This is primitive rape of our democracy and unrestrained slide into tyranny and impunity, which all along we thought had been buried seven months ago.

“No matter how intimidated and scared a people might be, it will necessarily get to a point where they will be compelled to protest to their dreaded king even if it means covering their faces with baskets in so doing.”

Jideobi urged the president to objectively appreciate the issues at stake and develop the courage to retrace his discomforting unconstitutional steps on the issue of the continued detention of Kanu despite the court ruling granting him bail unconditionally.

Awka—A member  of the legal team of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, Mr. Johnmary Jideobi has written President Muhammadu Buhari on the continued disobedience of court order as it concerned the release of the IPOB leader.

Jideobi, in the letter, said that by constitutional structuring and operation of Nigerian laws, the Department of State Service (DSS) and all military and para-military agencies were under the president’s ultimate control and command as the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and should therefore react when laws were flouted.

He recalled that the Federal High Court had, on December 17, 2015, delivered a ruling on the application brought by Kanu, adding that in the said ruling, a sacred order was solemnly pronounced against the DSS to the effect that Kanu should be released unconditionally, having been admitted to bail.

Jideobi said: “The decisions of the Federal High Court, the National Industrial Court, a High Court and of all other courts established by the Nigerian Constitution shall be enforced in any part of the Federation by all authorities and persons, and by other courts of law with subordinate jurisdiction to that of the Federal High Court, the National Industrial Court, a High Court and those other Courts.

“The discernible constitutional duty that has crystallized on your shoulders as eventuating from the provision of the law is to enforce the decisions of the Federal High Court, such as the one made by Justice Ademola J. on the 17th December, 2015.

”Obedience to orders of courts is fundamental to the peace and stability of the Nigerian nation. The ugly alternative is a painful recrudescence of triumph of brute force or anarchy, a resort to our old system of settlement by means of bow and arrows, machetes and guns.

“Disobedience to an order of court should, therefore, be seen as an offence directed not against the personality of the Judge who made the order, but as a calculated act of subversion of peace, law, and order in Nigeria..

“Obedience to every order of court is a duty which every citizen who believes in peace and stability of the Nigerian State owes to the nation. To allow court orders to be disobeyed would be to tread the road toward anarchy.

“If orders of the court can be treated with disrespect, the whole administration of justice is brought into scorn…If the remedies that the court grants to correct wrongs can be ignored, then, there will be nothing left for each person, but to take the law into his own hands

“The continued detention of Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, despite a subsisting order of court to the contrary, has satisfied all the ingredients of the definition ascribed to a contemnor who our Supreme Court adjudges to be an anarchist, terminator of democracy and enemy of order, peace and stability of Nigeria. Indeed, this is a shameful toga that is most unworthy of any occupant of the number one office in our Republic as ordained by our Constitution.

“This is primitive rape of our democracy and unrestrained slide into tyranny and impunity, which all along we thought had been buried seven months ago.

“No matter how intimidated and scared a people might be, it will necessarily get to a point where they will be compelled to protest to their dreaded king even if it means covering their faces with baskets in so doing.”

Jideobi urged the president to objectively appreciate the issues at stake and develop the courage to retrace his discomforting unconstitutional steps on the issue of the continued detention of Kanu despite the court ruling granting him bail unconditionally.