ECOWAS orders Buhari to release Dasuki, says you mock democracy

President Muhammadu Buhari-led Federal Government has been ordered by Court of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to release former National Security Adviser, Sambo Dasuki.

The court on Tuesday in Abuja, declared Dasiki’s arrest and detention as unlawful and arbitrary.

It also said that the further arrest of Mr Dasuki by government on November 4, after he was granted bail by a court of law, was a total mockery of democracy and the rule of law.

The Justice Friday Nwoke-led three-member panel, in its ruling said that Buhari-led Nigeria’s government erred to have arrested Mr Dasuki without a search warrant.

According to the panel, pattern of arrest negates the provisions of Section 28 of the Nigerian Police Act, which states that, a superior police officer may authorise the search of a resident belonging to a suspect assumed to be in illegal possession of an item, if the officer so authorised has a search warrant.

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Dasuki had approached the ECOWAS court after being rearrested by members of Nigeria’s State Security Service (SSS) not long after he met his bail conditions in November last year and has remained in the custody of the SSS since then.

He is being prosecuted on multiple trials of allegedly diverting $2.1 billion meant for the purchase of arms in the former President Goodluck Jonathan’s administration.

The Federal Government is also accusing him of illegal possession of fire arms.

By Ebere Ndukwu …

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