IPOB: GOVERNMENT’s USE OF MASKED WITNESSES IS AN UNFATHOMABLE INJUSTICE- SAYS HURIWA
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.”
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