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Slams action as unconstitutional
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Says impunity threatens democracy
BY CHINYERE OBIORA – The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has launched a legal challenge on President Muhammadu Buhari’s decision extending by there months the tenure of Mohammed Adamu as the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).
In approaching a Federal High Court in Lagos with the suit, the NBA is demanding a judicial determination of the constitutionality of the tenure elongation by the President.
With reference number, FHC/L/CS/214/2021, the suit has the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Police Service Commission, and the IGP, Mohammed Adamu as defendants.
According to the NBA President, Dayo Akpata, the legal move is strengthened by an urgent need, and a sacred duty, to reassert the supremacy of the rule of law in the face of growing impunity and the seeming reluctance of Law Officers in Government to give proper counsel to their principals.
He explained that NBA believes Adamu ceased to be a member of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) after attaining the milestone age of 35 years in service, adding; “The President’s extension of Mr Adamu’s tenure by three months, in the NBA’s respectful view, is therefore unconstitutional.”
Akpata said the lawyers’ body is suspicious that the more government officials casually violate the law, the harder it would become to expect citizens to be compliant.
In a statement released on behalf of NBA, Akpata said; “Citizens take their cues from their leaders and public office holders who flout the laws of the country that they are meant to uphold will discover sooner or later that their examples will be followed by those that they purport to govern.
“The ubiquity of acts of impunity, especially by those in high public offices, portends an existential threat to the survival of this country and her hard-won democracy.
“The NBA, now more than ever, is firmly committed to changing this narrative”, he said.
The NBA therefore pledged to sustain its resolve at always condemning and confronting lawlessness in any form and from all quarters in the country.
Having attained the compulsory retirement age of 35 years of service as a member of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), Adamu’s tenure as IGP effectively ended on February 1, 2021 before the extension by presidential fiat.
