Eastern Bar Forum Condemn Raid Of Justice Odili ‘s Home, Says Motive Is Very Clear

Eastern Bar Forum, has condemned the raid on the Abuja residence of Justice Mary Odili, a Justice of Nigeria’s Supreme Court, and wife of former Governor of Rivers State, Peter Odili.

According to the press statement signed today, by the Chairman, Governing Council of the Eastern Bar Forum, Sir. Uba Anene stressed that the motive for the raid is to continue to intimidate and overawe the 3rd arm of government.

Read the full statement below

Once again in the life of the Buhari administration the judicial arm of government is under attack by agents of the executive arm. The first attack was in 2016, just one year into its life. Nigerians woke up to horrible pictures of justices of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, the apex court in Nigeria, in their underwears, dazed and confused as exultant security agents ransacked their homes in the dead of night, having knocked down their gates and walls. The whole nation and the world was aghast.

“Who has done this” was the question on every lip. As it is now so was it then. Denials came flooding in, to the point that even the presidency denied responsibility. Then out stepped Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General and Minister for Justice, to affirm that he indeed authorized the outrage.

It is worth noting that not one judge was found culpable of any crime till date in any court of law in consequence of that midnight raid and the mind blowing sums of money in local and foreign currency purportedly discovered in the premises. But the message had been sent and received and lasting harm done to the last hope of the common man. That message was simple.

The executive arm is omnipotent and you are not untouchable.

To demonstrate that fact the same Buhari administration a while later hounded Honourable Justice Walter Onnoghen the then Chief Justice of Nigeria, out of office on trumped up allegations pertaining to some minutiae in his asset declaration forms. He was a Southerner.

It is dejavu all over again.

Last night the home of Honourable Justice Mary Odili, Justice of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, another Southerner and second in rank at the apex court was besieged by agents of the executive arm of government. Once again denials of responsibility has come pouring in, even from the Attorney-General of Nigeria.

We have known this Attorney-General well enough from antecedents to take his denials with a heavy pinch of salt. It is not plausible that any security agency can proceed on a raid of the residence of any Supreme Court justice without authorization from the highest quarters. We have seen from the first incident that indeed the current Attorney-General has no qualms at all with attacking and denigrating his primary constituency- the legal profession- in the service of some parochial and sectional/ethnic agenda.

We have further clear evidence of this in the El Rufai incident, when this Attorney-General hastily drew up and gazetted a law purporting to decentralize the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in order to legitimize a purported Northern Bar Association. Till date he has not bothered to take any steps to rescind that obnoxious act despite the tremendous goodwill shown to him by the current Bar leadership; keeping it as some sword of Damocles to be used as a cudgel of blackmail to keep the NBA in check.

The legal profession in Nigeria can no longer continue to play the ostrich.

The Eastern Bar Forum roundly condemns this outrageous and brazen attack on the judicial arm by the executive arm of government. The objective is crystal clear: to continue to intimidate and overawe that arm of government to enable the current Buhari administration continue its rape of our democracy and destruction of our hallowed institutions with an eye on the coming elections, including Anambra State. It is time for the Nigerian Bar Association, all the members of the noble profession and indeed all well-meaning citizens, to rise up with one voice and demand the sack of this strange Attorney-General! Nothing else will suffice if we must salvage our profession and save our nation.