Terrorism charges: CJ demonstrated uncommon bravery

A coalition of human rights organisations under the aegis of Justice Centre has hailed the Chief Judge of the Federal High Court, Justice John Tsoho, for declining to grant an exparte application brought before him, seeking an order to arrest and detain the Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele, for at least 60 days.

The organisation said by that action, the CJ demonstrated “uncommon courage, bravery, erudition, and candour.”

Justice Tsoho had declined the application to grant the order “for lack of evidence, absence of authorisation of the President for the application to be brought and for being an irregular procedure which was unacceptable to the court.”

The Director of JC, Kingdom Okere, also lauded Justice Tsoho for standing firm in the defence of the rule of law.

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He said, “Furthermore, the State Security Service must have known they did not have any credible evidence against the CBN Governor but for political and pecuniary reasons insisted on turning the rule of law upside-down.

“Otherwise, what could be the possible reason President Muhammadu Buhari would not have been informed of such grave allegations of terrorism financing against the Central Bank Governor when the President was in the country and in the same city of Abuja the same date the suit was filed.”

According to him, the CSO would approach the court to demand the sacking of the those responsible if the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), does not take action.

He said, “We will go to court if the President fails to sack those responsible for the false allegation and attempts to remove the Governor of the Central Bank of Bank, Godwin Emefiele.

“The whole world will now be looking forward to the reaction of the President over the recurrent attack on his promise to deliver credible, free and fair elections come 2023.

“We are expecting a press statement that the DG of the DSS had been sacked over his role in this Emefiele sage and if we don’t hear that, we will approach the court of competent jurisdiction demanding that he be relieved of his position.

“If this is not adhered to, we will be on the street protesting in defence of this action by the President everyday.”