Daily Independent Online.
*
Friday, August 13, 2004.
IG’s
jaundiced interpretation of Appeal Court ruling
Recently, some newspaper reports quoted
the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mr. Tafa Adebayo Balogun, as saying he
was yet to restore the police security of the Anambra State Governor, Dr. Chris
Nwabueze Ngige, OON, because the Appeal Court, Enugu, did not order him to do
so. The IG, who was responding to questions from newsmen at a press conference
in Abuja addressed by the Minister of Police Affairs, Mr. Broderick Bozimo,
said that he withdrew the Governor’s police security based on advice from
the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Akin
Olujinmi (SAN), following a controversial order given by Justice Stanley Nnaji
of Enugu High Court on January 2, 2004. Continuing, the IGP, who is the nation’s
Chief Law Enforcer and a lawyer, said that when the suit arising from an appeal
filed by Governor Ngige against Justice Nnaji’s order came up for hearing
at the Appeal Court, Enugu, "it was ruled that the issue was the
substantive case and could not be treated as an interlocutory injunction".
The Anambra State Government is amazed at the
selective and jaundiced interpretation given by the IG to the Appellate
Court’s order considering the fact that the Appeal Court was specific in
its ruling of Thursday January 29, 2004, when it ordered the Inspector General
of Police not to enforce Justice Nnaji’s order. The Court said it was
"restraining the IG or his agents from obstructing Governor Ngige from the
performance of his duties as the Governor of Anambra State." One,
therefore, wonders then which order the IG carried out when he withdrew the
Governor’s police security and why he has refused to return same having
been so directed by the Appellate Court.
To buttress this point, let us take a look at the
enrolled controversial order of Justice Nnaji made on January 2, 2004, which
gave rise to the current controversies over Governor Ngige’s security
personnel and for which Justice Nnaji has since been suspended by the National
Judicial Council (NJC) which also recommended him to the Enugu State Governor,
Dr. Chimaroke Nnamani, for dismissal. In it, Justice Nnaji ordered "the
1st respondent (Inspector General of Police) to remove the 3rd respondent
(Governor Ngige) from office in the same manner he put him in office on 10th
July 2003 after having resigned as Governor of Anambra State".
Consequently, the Inspector General of Police ordered
the withdrawal of the police security personnel of the Governor, the Government
House and the Governor’s Lodge purporting his action to be in obedience
to the Lower Court’s order.
Following Justice Nnaji’s obnoxious ruling,
Governor Ngige went to the Appeal Court, Enugu Division, and simultaneously
filed a motion for an Interlocutory Injunction restraining the Inspector
General of Police from removing him from office or in any manner from enforcing
the judgment of Justice Nnaji.
When the motion for Interlocutory Injunction came up
for hearing on January 12, 2004, before the Appeal Court, Enugu, presided over
by Justice Mahmud Mohammed, the Court, in granting the prayers of the Governor,
made an interim order "restraining the Inspector General of Police by
himself, his agents, servants, workmen, privies or otherwise
howsoever…from removing Governor Ngige from office as Governor of Anambra
State or in any manner preventing or obstructing or from further obstructing
the performance of his duties as Governor of Anambra State towards enforcing
the decision/order of Enugu State High Court given on 2nd January 2004 in suit
No. E/503m/2003."
The Inspector General of Police, who was represented
in court by a State Counsel on the said January 12, 2004, consented to the
order being made in terms as stated above.
The Inspector General of Police consequently refused
to comply with the Order of the Court of Appeal on the grounds that the
Attorney General of the Federation had advised him that the Order did not
direct the return of police security personnel of the Governor which he had
earlier claimed he took away in purported partial compliance with the Justice
Nnaji order and which he has now been ordered by the Appeal Court not to touch
or enforce.
The question, therefore, is: Did Justice Nnaji in his
order direct the Inspector General of Police to withdraw the police security of
the Governor? Did the Appeal Court in granting the Interlocutory Injunction
direct the Inspector General not to enforce the Justice Nnaji ruling? Which
order was the Inspector General of Police obeying when he withdrew the police
personnel of the Governor? As a lawyer is the Inspector General of Police not
in a position to vet the advice of the Attorney General and draw his attention
to the inherent flaws in it? Nigerians would want answers to these questions if
the Inspector General of Police is to convince them that he is not being
economical with the truth and that he is not acting another script.
For the avoidance of doubt, when the Court of Appeal,
Enugu, was being asked to make an order directing the Inspector General of
Police to restore the Governor’s police security personnel, the Court
declined on the grounds that the Interlocutory Injunction it gave on January
12, 2004, was explicit enough for the Attorney General of the Federation and
the Inspector General of Police to comply with.
Indeed the presiding Justice in the January 29, 2004,
ruling, Justice John Afolabi Fabiyi, which the Inspector General of Police
cited at the Abuja press conference as a justification for his continued
refusal to restore Governor Ngige’s police security personnel, made it
clear in the concluding paragraph of his ruling when he said thus: "one
more word and I shall be done. On 12-1-04, an order of interim injunction was
granted to restrain the Inspector General of Police and his privies from
removing the 1st Appellant/Respondent (Governor Ngige) from office as Governor
of Anambra State pending the determination of his motion on notice in this
court now subsumed by the stay of proceedings ordered. The order of interim
injunction served the purpose of putting on hold a state of uncertainty. It
facilitated cohesion of the polity and satisfied the purport of the order made
on 12-2-2004 and directed at the Inspector General of Police shall continue to
subsist and remain potent pending the determination of the Applicant’s
appeal by the Supreme Court."
The above extract explains clearly that the previous
order of January 12, 2004, which the Attorney General of the Federation and the
Inspector General of Police have mischievously refused to comply with, had been
re-affirmed and extended by the Court of Appeal. So what are these officers
waiting for?
The Attorney General of the Federation as the Chief
Law Officer of the nation should to be courageous enough and write a pure and
non-jaundiced legal opinion to President Olusegun Obasanjo and to the Chief Law
Enforcer of the nation, the Inspector General of Police, so as to obviate and
ameliorate the obvious implications on the polity of the continued disobedience
of the Appellate Court’s two orders.
Fred Chukwuelobe
Senior Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and
Publicity.
