SAN FRANCISCO, October 12, (THEWILL) – The Federal Government has insisted that its fight was against corruption and not the judiciary.
This was disclosed by the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, in an interview with State House correspondents at the end of a meeting of the Federal Executive Council presided over by President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.
Mohammed was reacting to the raid on the homes of judges by the Department of State Services (DSS) between Friday and Saturday on allegations of corruption.
He insisted that the arrests of the judges were carried out within the ambit of the law since they do not have immunity against investigation and prosecution adding that about 11 of the President’s ministers are lawyers out of which about five are Senior Advocates of Nigeria showing that Buhari has a lot of respect for the judiciary.
“Do not confuse the fight against corruption as a fight against judiciary. What the government is concerned and passionate about is to fight corruption,” he said.
“In the process of fighting corruption, it is not unusual that you step on some very sensitive toes but the question to ask and I think these has been adequately answered by the Attorney-General is that let’s remove emotion from facts.
“One, do judges have immunity? The answer is no. Can judges be arrested? The answer is yes. Have judges that are serving been arrested in Nigeria? The answer is yes. Justice Okoli had been arrested and tried.
“Now, the next question to ask is what is the proper procedure for arresting anybody including judges? There must be properly executing search warrant. Was such presented? The answer again is yes.
“People have tried to muddle the facts about when do you search the person’s house. The truth of the matter is that under the new criminal justice law, you can search anybody, anywhere, anytime.
“Again they have tried to muddle issues by trying to say that the NJC is the only authority that can attend to complaints and discipline. The answer once again is no.
“When a judge is accused of professional misconduct is quite different from what is happening now. If you suspect anybody including Governors who have immunity, they are still subject to investigations. So I want to make it clear, this government has the highest respect for judiciary and two we are not in any way trying to ridicule the judiciary.
“We are not painting the whole of the judges with the same brush but we also have a duty to fight corruption at whatever level and in doing so, we will do so within the ambit of the law.”
“Unfortunately, people have even brought issues that are completely irrelevant to the matter. Some people are saying, oh, the reason why they went to some particular judge’s house is because the president wants somebody from one part of the country to be chief justice of the federation.
“I think that is preposterous. I want to assure you that this government has no intention to humiliate the judiciary and for those who are talking about separation of powers, I think you are stretching it too far.
“Members of the executive and I can be invited by any arm of the government and I will go. So I think we should situate this thing in the right perspective. What we have done, we have done within the ambit of the law.”
Story by David Oputah
