The Nigerian Bar Association has condemned the fight between operatives of the Department of State Services and the personnel of the Nigerian Correctional Service over the custody of the suspended Central Bank of Nigeria governor, Godwin Emefiele.
The NBA, in a statement on Wednesday by its President, Yakubu Maikyau (SAN) demanded that the two agencies take disciplinary measures against their personnel for their “disgraceful conduct.”
After detaining him for over a month, the DSS, on Tuesday, took Emefiele before the Federal High Court in Lagos where he was arraigned on illegal firearms charges.
Justice Nicholas Oweibo granted Emefiele N20m bail and ordered that he should be remanded in the Ikoyi facility of the Nigeria Correctional Service pending the perfection of his bail conditions.
However, the DSS prevented the correctional service from taking Emefiele in a bid to rearrest him.
The development degenerated into a free-for-all, with DSS operatives tearing the uniform of a warder, who they manhandled.
The conduct of the officials of the two agencies drew criticism.
The NBA called for an overhaul of the two institutions and a total reorientation of the personnel.
“A situation where officers of the Federal Government agencies engage in a fight as witnessed by the public, for whatever reason, is antithetical to our security as a nation and creates a recipe for anarchy and chaos. Both the DSS and the NCoS are important institutions dealing with national security and administration of justice respectively, and the need for them to work in concert towards attaining justice in a secured Nigeria cannot be overemphasised.
“While it is difficult not to hold the leadership of the two Federal Government agencies directly responsible for the shameful and disgraceful conduct of the personnel, the NBA President has particularly called on the two agencies to take immediate disciplinary measures against the officers involved in this disgraceful conduct,” the NBA President said.
Efforts to get the DSS spokesperson, Peter Afunanya, were futile, as he neither picked up calls placed to his mobile line nor responded to a message sent to him.
On his part, the NCoS spokesperson, Abubakar Umar, when contacted, told our correspondent, “No comment on the matter, please.”
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