Abubakar Malami, minister of justice, says some people are
taking advantage of the federal government’s respect for human rights and rule
of law to commit insurgency.
Speaking during a Nigerian Television Authority (NTA)
programme on Tuesday, Malami warned that the Buhari administration will not sit
back and watch those persons take up arms to render the government “helpless”.
The minister’s comments re-echoed President Muhammadu
Buhari’s warning to those “misbehaving in certain parts of the country”,
particularly in the south-east where government infrastructures have been under
attack.
In condemning the attacks, some of which the Indigenous
People of Biafra (IPOB) has been accused of carrying out, Buhari had said:
“Those of us in the fields for 30 months, who went through the war, will treat
them in the language they understand.”
During the TV programme, Malami said
the federal government has been magnanimous in respecting the rule of law and
enforcing fundamental human rights.
“Perhaps what we are witnessing today in terms of impunity,
insurgency could equally be attributed in one way or the other to a religious
submission to the rule of law by the government,” he said.
“Consider chapter four of the constitution on the
enforcement of fundamental human rights; people are now operating much more in
breach as far as the fundamental human rights enforcement is concerned as
against operating in such a way that the rights are intended to bring about a
harmonious co-existence in the system.
“How can you imagine a Nigerian taking arm; one Nigerian
killing over 100 people, only out of the spirit of perhaps the consideration
for the enforcement of fundamental human rights.
“So, perhaps, what is unfolding today is on the account of
religious observance of the rule of law as enshrined in the constitution.
“Rather than people taking advantage of the human rights
principles in the constitution positively, they are perhaps using it outside
the reign of constitutional consideration.”
The minister added that the Buhari administration remains
committed to the rule of law “within the context of allowing the procedure and
organs of government to operate optimally and effectively.”
“A single individual, within the context of public interest
and the interest of justice, cannot unilaterally take a decision that will now
render the judiciary, the executive and legislature helpless, perhaps all out
of appreciation of purported consideration of the rule of law,” he added.
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