VANGUARD
Legal practitioners under the aegis of Lawyers in Defence of Democracy have slammed the State Security Services SSS for arresting and detaining the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria CBN, Mr Godwin Emefiele while leaving out his principal and approving authority, former President Muhammadu Buhari.
The SSS had in December last year made attempts to arrest Emefiele but was stopped by the Courts.
Emefiele had in the lead up to the 2023 general elections came under intense scrutiny following the apex bank’s Naira Redesign Policy which many partisans saw as targeting Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, then presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress APC.
Speaking on Arise Television breakfast show monitored Friday in Abuja, Convener, Lawyers in Defence of Democracy, Kingdom Okere, also accused the SSS of framing up Emefiele. He described the arrest as illegal, saying it was in violation of a subsisting order of the Federal Capital Territory FCT High Court.
He consequently called for the sack of the Director General State Services DGSS, Yusuf Bichi, saying there was no reason to have retained him when President Tinubu sacked the Service Chiefs.
Okere who recalled how the SSS had tried to arrest Emefiele in December last year but only succeeded in June 2023, said it was deeply concerning that the security agency would still detain Emefiele for more than one month, instead of having gathered its evidences within the period from December 2022 to June 2023.
He said; “We just heard from the statement by the DSS that they have charged him to court. Charging him to court is different from arraigning him.
“We have not seen a copy of the charge. Of course, the accused has been in illegal detention of the DSS, and his lawyers should be privy to whatever charges that may have preferred against him…
