Police sending bad signals ahead of 2015 – SANs

 

Inspector- General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar

Some Senior Advocates of Nigeria have described the recent disruption of a meeting of some governors in Abuja as an abuse of human rights and bad signals for the 2015 elections.

 the lawyers said it was illegal for the police to disrupt the peaceful gathering of Nigerians, noting that the court ruling that said the New PDP was not recognised by law as a party did not ban its members from meet

Constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, SAN, said though the court had not recognised the New PDP, it did not stop them from meeting because the constitution guarantees free assembly.

He said, “The court ruling has nothing to do with this. The right of meeting; the right of association; the right of expression of opinion; the right of religion and other rights are guaranteed by the constitution. Anybody can meet anywhere and he is fully entitled to do so.

“I’m afraid, what the police are doing is a breach of the constitution; it’s a breach of the rule of law. It is clearly illegal. You cannot go about stopping those who are meeting peacefully. It’s a case of our underdevelopment. The implication is that we are not a full-fledged democracy.”

When asked if the police could be neutral during the 2015 election, Sagay said, “That is a 64,000-dollar question. Let us just pray that somehow we will have a free, fair and credible election in 2015, because the alternative to that could be chaos.”

Similarly, another SAN, Emeka Ngige, said going by the role the police have played in the ongoing political crisis in Rivers State, the recent disruption of the G7 governors’ meeting was a sign that the police would be used to intimidate opposition during the next general elections.

He said, “The judgment against the New PDP did not say the governors cannot assemble. If the governors have decided to meet with the purpose of forming a new party, it is wrong for the police to go and stop them.

“Recent activities of the Nigeria Police have shown that nobody can be sure that they would be neutral in 2015. It is surprising that the police, with all the lawyers in its legal department, will be disrupting the meeting of people with immunity inside a governor’s lodge. Even in the apartheid South Africa, we didn’t have this kind of thing, let alone Nigeria in democracy. It is a sign of bad things to come; all well-meaning Nigerians should cry out.”

Ngige added that the police’s action was in flagrant breach of the provisions of the constitution.

In the same vein, Yusuf Ali, SAN, said the police is establishing itself as a partisan force, serving the purpose of the people in government.

He said, “Under our constitution, the right to assemble is free. Nothing stops the governors from meeting because the right to free assembly is guaranteed by the constitution. I think the Nigeria Police is overrating itself. It’s exposing itself as a partisan force unfortunately.

“The police should be neutral in all these political struggles. They should learn from what happened to those who have behaved in this way in the past. The loyalty of the Nigeria Police should be to the Nigerian people, not to the temporary holders of political powers. If what they are doing foretells tomorrow, then there is a serious foreboding in the horizon.”