Ex-NBA boss kicks over Buhari’s ‘national interest’ speech

Former President of the Nigeria Bar Association (NBA), Joe Okocha (SAN), has warned that the rule of law remains supreme to anything national interest or national security.
The legal luminary, who gave his voice to the argument during a chat on a national television yesterday, also picked holes in “the way and manner the nation’s anti-graft agency, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) is prosecuting its fight against corruption,” noting that, the fight must be subjected to the rule of law.
Okocha’s reaction is coming on the heels of a recent speech by President Muhammadu Buhari during the NBA annual conference where he was quoted to have said: “the rule of law must be subject to the supremacy of the nation’s security and national interest.
Our apex court has had cause to adopt a position on this issue in this regard and it is now a matter of judicial recognition that; where national security and public interest are threatened, the individual rights of those allegedly responsible must take second place, in favor of the greater good of society.” He expressed concern why the NBA president and his other colleagues would keep silent over Buhari’s speech, when the NBA motto professes the promotion of the rule of law.
He said: “I am surprised the president of NBA and other colleagues are silent; it is only the courts that can make such pronouncement, whether a matter of national security is of national interest or national security.
He argued further that in the case of the erstwhile National Security Adviser (NSA) Col.
Sambo Dasuki who is still incarcerated, it was more ideal for the government to have honoured the High Court which ordered for his release on bail or conversely proceed to the appellant court to challenge the ruling with cogent argument backed with evidences to assuage the minds of Nigerians that Dasuki was actually a threat to national security.
“The rightful thing for the Attorney General to have done was to advise the president to approach the court with substantive evidence to prove their point; it is only through court that could have determined whether the victim should be kept; they have to obey every order made by the court and make an appeal,” he said.