A human rights lawyer, Mike
Ozekhome, SAN, and a third Republic Senate President, Ameh Ebute have clashed
over the nationwide speech delivered by President Muhammadu Buhari to
commemorate the Independence Anniversary on Tuesday, October 1.
Both lawyers disagreed in the
area where the President mentioned cyber crimes and abuse of technology through
hate speech.
President Buhari, during
yesterday’s broadcast had pointed out that government’s attention was
increasingly being drawn on cyber crimes and the abuse of technology through
hate speech and other divisive materials being propagated on social media.
Ebute and Ozekhome, who spoke
with Sun separately shared different opinions on Buhari’s address.
Ebute said that Buhari was not in
any way wrong, adding that, “There is no country that freedom is complete
without limitation. There cannot be freedom without limitation in any country
in the world.
“And freedom of expression,
freedom of association and freedom of everything cannot be taken to the extreme
so as to create insecurity in the country. I agree with the view.
On his party, Ozekhome, a constitution
lawyer said the Supreme Court had settled the matter in the case of
Dokubo-Asari and the Federal Government of Nigeria when Dokubo-Asari was
accused of treason.
Ozekhome added, “Now, there is a
difference between individual rights and what you call rule of law. What this
government has also insisted on is that national security is superior to rule
of law.
“We are saying no. Rule of law is
superior and higher than national security because without the rule of law,
there cannot be a nation’s stake which will now begin to talk of national
security.
“Rule of law predates even the
nation itself. It is the violation of rule of law in the Garden of Eden that
made God to drive away Adam and Eve because they violated the laid down rules.
“So, nobody is talking of
individual right. But even then, when individual right touches on national
security, what do you do? You go to the court of law and you allow the person
to have a fair hearing as the government did with El-Zakzaky.
“Once the court has pronounced,
the government no longer has a right to say national security is higher than
that individual’s right because a court of law, an arm of government, the
judiciary, that has the prerogative to determine who is wrong and who is right,
has already decided that in this particular case, the individual right is
higher than national security.”
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