President Muhammadu Buhari’s speech at the 58th Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) recently in Abuja has proved to Nigerians once again why he has refused to obey some court rulings.
The President stated that where national security and public interest were being threatened, the individual rights of those allegedly responsible must take the second position.
Since that speech, many analysts and observers have expressed divergent views on the matter. While some expressed regret over the statement which contradicts his speech at Chatham House London in February 2015, where he described himself as a reformed democrat, others did not see anything wrong with what he said.
“I cannot change the past. But I can change the present and the future. So, before you is a former military ruler and a converted democrat who is ready to operate under democratic norms and is subjecting himself to the rigours of democratic elections for the fourth time,” President Buhari said.
The NBA was the first to fire back at the President. The association in its communiqué disagreed with the President on the matter. It re-stated the importance of the rule of law to the growth of democracy and insisted that national security or interest must operate within the ambit of the rule of law.
“As a corollary, Conference frowns at the present growing trend whereby government decides on which court orders to obey.
“The court has exclusive duty under a democratic dispensation to interpret the Constitution and other laws, and government and the citizenry must comply with court orders at all times until set aside,” NBA said.
The association also expressed its support on the war against corruption but warned that it must be fought without being selective as presently done.
In his reaction to the President’s famous speech, Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, recalled how President Buhari during his first coming as the military head of state, similarly tampered with press freedom.
He warned that there is no short cut to democracy as the history of law is as old as humanity.
“Here we go again,” Soyinka said in the statement he titled ‘Buhari’s Pernicious Doctrine.’
“At his first coming, it was ‘I intend to tamper with Freedom of the Press,’ and Buhari did proceed to suit action to the words, sending two journalists – Irabor and Thompson – to prison as a reward for their professional integrity.
“Now, a vague, vaporous, but commodious concept dubbed “national interest” is being trotted out as alibi for flouting the decisions of the Nigerian judiciary. President Buhari has obviously given deep thought to his travails under a military dictatorship, and concluded that his incarceration was also in the ‘national interest.
“Mr. Buhari sparked outrage with his statement while addressing a gathering of lawyers when he said: “the rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest,” he said.
The opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in its reaction said: “It is instructive to note that contrary to claims by Mr. President, there is no pronouncement by the Supreme Court that subjugates constitutional rule of law and rights of citizens to the whims, caprices and dictatorial impulses of any president.”
It claimed: “President Buhari is apprehensive of the electoral defeat that awaits him in February 2019 for which he is seeking ways to subvert the system.
“But we caution that in this desperation to hold on to power, he must not seek to again subvert our constitutional order, as he will be firmly resisted by Nigerians.”
A human rights activist, Ifeanyi Okonkwo, attributed the President’s speech to the handiwork of those who want to please him at all cost.
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“The president did not write that speech. A very ignorant person who wanted to please him did. The rule of law cannot take the back seat. The President is turning the law upside down. The rule of law is paramount in democracy. It determines what national security is.”
However, a legal practitioner and founder of Voters Awareness Initiative (VAI), Barr. Wale Ogunade, agreed with President Buhari on elevating national interest above the rule of law. He stated that in a case of rights of citizens which are fundamental as provided for in the constitution are not absolute but are with limitations.
Barr Ogunade said: “Furthermore, under our laws, an individual right to property can be abridged in the public or national interest by the state, through acquisition and the right of the former owner can only be remedied by compensation in most cases only on the basis of the owner having legal documents to the property.
“This again is a reaffirmation of the fact that where national or public interest comes into contact with individual right, the latter becomes subsumed,” he said.
Though this is not the first time the President has shown through his speech and action why his administration has refused to obey some court rulings under the guise of public interest, his choice of the venue of NBA conference to make such statement may be an indirect way of confronting lawyers on some of their past rulings on some issues considered to be sensitive to the administration’s interest like corruption, among others.
