SOWORE: For Nigeria govt, national security takes precedence over rule of law – Falana

Lagos lawyer, Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), on Sunday berated the Federal Government’s penchant for disobedience of court orders, saying it only obeys orders made by foreign courts.

Falana was reacting to the failure of the Department of State Services (DSS) to release the convener of #RevolutionNow protest, Mr. Omoyele Sowore, and Olawale Bakare despite a valid court order for their release.

According to Falana, the federal government hurriedly obeyed the order of a London court to pay the sum of £250,000 cost to a foreign firm, Process and Industrial Development (P&ID) as condition to appeal a controversial $9.6billion judgment.

He said: “The Federal Government has alleged that the controversial judgment debt of $9.6billion was obtained fraudulently by P & ID. But the commercial court in London recently ordered Nigeria to pay £250,000 within 14 days as a precondition for filing an appeal against the judgment.

“The said sum of £250,000 has since been paid to P & ID in strict compliance with the orders of Her Majesty’s High Court in London.

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“But since national security takes precedence over the rule of law at home, the orders of the Federal High Court for the immediate release of Messrs Sowore and Bakare have been brazenly disobeyed by the State Security Service.”

It would be recalled that the DSS was served with warrants for the release of Sowore and Bakare, issued by the Federal High Court Abuja on Thursday but the spokesman of the secret police, Peter Ifunaya, on Friday blamed the non-release of the two men on failure of the sureties or lawyers to show up to receive them.

The claim was however rubbished by Falana, who said lawyers from his team waited in vain for hours to take their clients from custody on Thursday.

The lawyers made a repeat call at the agency on Saturday following indications that they may be released but waited for hours without both men being released.

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