He said this while expressing
dissatisfaction with the position of President Muhammadu Buhari that national
interest should be elevated above the rule of law.
Buhari said this in his opening
remarks at the 2018 NBA annual general conference in Abuja.
The president vowed that hiw
administration would not sacrifice national security for the rule of law.
But responding, Ozekhome said
Buhari spoke in a manner less expected of him.
“Mr. President, with all due
respect, is definitely wrong on this score,” he said in a statement.
“The declaration reminded me of
the locust days of Decrees 2 and 4 which decimated citizens’ rights and ousted
the courts’ jurisdiction to inquire into breach of such rights. I was shocked
when I beheld lawyers, who ought to have protested loudly at this legal
profanity, clapping, laughing and applauding him. It was, to me, a desecration
of the dignity of man.
“Are we cursed, or are we under a
spell or state of mental stupor and intellectual inebriety? Mr. President was
literally suspending the Nigerian Constitution, by his statement. And lawyers
were cheering!”
The lawyer argued that under no
circumstance should the rule of law be relegated, saying it is the foundation
of the society.
“Rule of law is the very anvil
and foundation on which any society is anchored. It precedes society itself and
predominates over national interest,” he said.
“Indeed, modern society itself
emerged from pristine stone age irrationality through the operation of rule of
law. It was the violation of the rule of law in the Garden of Eden by Adam and
Eve, when they ate of the forbidden fruit, that so upset God that he drove them
out of this Eldorado, after giving them a fair hearing. Without rule of law,
there can be no nation state. Without nation state, there can be no national
interest. Rule of law is father of national interest. No society can exist
without the Rule of law. It is immutable, ineradicable, and unchangeable.
“Those deceiving Mr. President
and writing warped “legal opinions” and speeches for him on sensitive national
matters that could snowball into serious cataclysmic miasma capable of
consuming all of us, just to keep their cheap jobs and serve the insatiable
bacchannalian appetites of their gods at the ephemeral corridors of power, must
remember the immortal words of the Supreme Court in Military Governor of Lagos
State v Odumegwu Ojukwu (2001) FWLR (part 50) 1779, 1802, coran erudite
Obaseki, JSC: ‘The Nigerian Constitution is founded on the rule of law, the
primary meaning of which is that everything must be done according to law.
Nigeria, being one of the countries in the world which professes loudly to
follow the rule of law, gives no room for the rule of self-help by force to
operate’.”
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