Disobedience of court order invitation to anarchy, says HURIWA
A civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the federal government for its arbitrariness and lawlessness in the handling of the legal matters involving the leader of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zackzaky and the former National Security Adviser, Col. Sambo Dasuki (rtd).
HURIWA also described as lawlessness and an abuse of court process for a Federal High Court judge to grant from the backdoors the ex parte order to proscribe the Shiites Islamic Movement only because the members protested the unlawful detention of their leader by the government for over three years against a binding bail order of the same court.
In a statement by the National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National Media Affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, HURIWA described the declaration of the Shiites as a terror group by government as an act of despotism.
It wondered why the Federal High Court whose bail orders the government disrespected could at the same time let itself be used as an instrument of authoritarianism in seeking to criminalise civil protests by the Shiites.
“The action of the Federal High Court in granting the injunction against the Shiites is a great disservice to our constitutional democracy and will harm the image of the judiciary for a long time to come,” the body asserted.
HURIWA also specifically, carpeted the ministerial nominee, Abubakar Malami the ex-justice minister for defending his unjust and illegal counsel to President Buhari to disobey court orders ordering the release on bail the duo of El-Zaczacky/wife and Col. Dasuki.
“At the Senate’s screening on July 26, the immediate past attorney-general of the federation, Abubakar Malami justified the continuing detention of certain persons in disobedience of several court orders
“HURIWA calls the performance of Malami at the ministerial confirmation hearing as the display of the arrogance of power even as it reminded Malami that power is transient,” the statement said.
The body accused President Buhari of abuse of office by using undue advantage of his office to de-legitimise a group of the same faith only because they are minority whereas the President is Sunni, insisting that “this declaration of the Islamic Movement of Nigeria is an attempt to use the powers of the Nigerian state to achieve the personal agenda of a religious group opposed to Shiites.”
