Constitutional lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, has lampooned the Federal Government over reported seizure of travel documents of former Chief Justice of the Federation (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, describing the development as “an unnecessary overkill and childish vendetta carried too far.”
According to a statement by Chief Ozekhome on Saturday, the Federal government needs to retrace its steps over the latest action it took over the Onnoghen controversy.
“The fresh news (of course usually very negative from this government) is that retired Justice Onnoghen’s passport has been seized and that he has been barred from travelling abroad. The government should immediately rescind this ill-advised decision which simply amounts not only to an overkill of a revered Supreme Court Justice already totally humiliated through forced removal from office, without being found guilty of any crime, but also suggests vendetta and vengeance carried too far.
“What is Onnoghen’s crime? That he served his country faithfully, diligently and probably stepped on some sensitive and untouchable toes? That he was forced out of office without first being found guilty of any crime? That it took the Court of Appeal over two months to deliver judgment affirming he was not being given a fair hearing, only after he had been humiliated out of office, a case of shutting the stable after the horse had bolted? That he was seen as a cog in the wheel of the then forthcoming February 23 presidential election over which he was expected to play a prominent role, and had to be booted out on January 29?” he queried.
The senior advocate observed that the former CJN had been humiliated so much so that he, at least, deserved to be left alone to live his life outside office in peace, querying why ban would be placed on his travels abroad.
“Having inflicted these irretrievable punishments on him, can’t this government allow him peace to pick up and sew together the shredded pieces of his life’s garments? Must it extract a Shylock’s pound of flesh? Must it continuously kick a citizen already lying prostrate on the floor, on the ass? To achieve what? To please and satiate the bacchanalian appetites of which unseen gods, goddesses and deities?
“How does a government fight and humiliate its own citizens rather than save them? What self-contradiction for the same government mouthing anti-corruption to be praising an Abacha whose looted funds are still being retrieved from bank vaults across the globe over two decades after his death?
“Mr Government sir, please, let Honourable Justice Onnoghen be. Give him peace. I beg of you. Having not prosecuted him and got him convicted, accord him his full inalienable and fundamental rights,” Ozekhome said.
and then