Onnoghen: Ohanaeze to FG, stop heating up the Polity…says ignoring NJC is curious

THE President General of Umbrella organisation of Ndigbo, the Ohananeze, Chief John Nnia Nwodo has warned the Federal Government that it was heating up the polity by the needless action it was taking against the Chief Justice of Nigeria CJN.

The President General said that legal opinion did not support the action and therefore should not have been contemplated at all.

In a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja yesterday, Chief Nwodo said that the Ohaneze has received, with shock and disappointment, the decision of the Federal government of Nigeria, acting through the Code of Conduct Bureau to prosecute the Chief Justice Of Nigeria.

The President General noted that Legal opinion abounds that the action was premature and ill-conceived following an extant Court Of Appeal decision which interpreted the procedure for prosecuting judicial officers.

According to the statement, “This procedure has not been followed. The fact that the National Judicial Council has been ignored is not just illegal but suggests deliberate court shopping and a predetermined objective

” Secondly, the fact that one of the issues being canvassed by the CCB before the CCT is for an order of the CCT for the Chief Justice of Nigeria to step aside from his exalted office pending the conclusion of the trial contrary to the procedure for his removal from office as provided by the Nigerian constitution exposes the aim of the prosecution”.

Nwodo said that a perusal of some of the depositions in the charge sheet also showed a completely distorted conception of the regulations pertaining to the declaration of assets.

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According to him, “Assets acquired after assumption of office are declared at the end of a public official’s tenure in order to present a comparison with assets declared on the assumption of office

“The Federal government is heating up the polity. Not long ago we were entertained with all sorts of interpretations of the Vice President’s powers while the President is on leave.

“The GMD of the Nnpc was accused of violating laws pertaining to the award of contracts. Because he comes from a protected ethnic group and class, no investigation was conducted

“Fulani herdsman killed 110 natives of Nimbo, in Enugu State. Police investigations led to the arrest of some of the herdsman with their telephone pictures of the carnage but no one has been prosecuted

“The same carnage took place in Benue State. Pictures of the murderers wearing the uniform of the choir members of a Catholic church where they murdered their priests and members of their congregation were all over the social media. No one was arrested or prosecuted

“Their sponsors, Miyetti Allah, addressed a press conference recently extolling their ethnic agenda and making decisive and inciting statements. Not one of them was arrested

” The insensitiveness of the Federal government to respect for our constitution. Its patronage of double standards in the enforcement of the law is sickening and abhorrent

“If these developments are taken together with the obvious rigging regulations approved by INEC, we fear that our country is about to be thrown into a needless political instability”.