Gadzama Led NBA Security Agencies Committee Condemns Manhandling Of Lawyer, Slates Meeting With Customs Boss For March 8

The Nigerian Bar Association Security Agencies Relations Committee (NBA-SARC) has reacted to a viral video of a lawyer being manhandled by uniformed officers of the Nigeria Customs Service at the Service’s Headquarters in Abuja.

The video which was disseminated across social media platforms on Tuesday, 22nd February, 2022 has since elicited reactions from a crosss-section of the public with lawyers particularly frowning at unending cases of intimidation and abuse vy Security Agencies against lawyers in the course of their professional duties.

In a statement sighted by the Chairman of the Committee, Joe-Kyari Gadzama SAN, described the video as unpleasant and establishing a prima facie case of intimidation and harassment by the NCS officials against the lawyer.

“The Nigerian Bar Association – Security Agencies Relations Committee (“NBA-SARC”) has taken urgent cognizance of the unpleasant video presently making the rounds on social media wherein uniformed officers of the Nigeria Customs Service (“NCS”) were seen violently manhandling, harassing, and physically intimidating a Legal Practitioner who, supposedly in the course of the discharge of professional duties, had accompanied a client to the NCS, for resolution of a dispute on the impounded car of his client.

Quite sadly, the NBA-SARC has, prima facie, observed from the referenced viral video that the said Legal Practitioner in the course of discharging his regular professional duties, was seen being manhandled by several uniformed NCS officers and forcefully detained on the instructions of an officer of the NCS.”

The statement further condemned the act in strong terms describing it as adverse to all known ethics of the Service.

Gadzama noted; “The NBA–SARC strongly condemns such wanton display of brute force, physical harassment, and intimidation as seen exhibited against the Legal Practitioner in the viral video by some officers of the NCS. Indeed, this ugly incidence goes against every known ethical and operational standard of the NCS, which is one of the elite security agencies with pivotal security mandates.”

In a related development, the NBA-SARC has written to the Comptroller General of the Nigeria Customs Service (NCS), Col. Hameed Ibrahim Alli (Rtd.) over the viral video of officers of the Service manhandling a lawyer.

In the letter, dated, Wednesday, February 23,2022, the Committee slated a meeting with the Customs hierarchy on the 8th of March, 2022 for deliberation on issues of shared concern and sundry matters.

The letter also expressed great displeasure in the incident which involved officers of the service manhandling a lawyer in the video which has since gone viral and demanded for explanations and appropriate sanctions against erring officers.