A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and constitutional lawyer, Chief Sabastine Hon, has condemned the efforts of both the Lagos State and Federal Governments to rubbish the report of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry on the bloody #EndSARS protests, saying it ‘smacks of the highest level of irresponsibility, willful recklessness, deception and perfidy.’
A statement in by Chief Hon Abuja regarding the report reads:
‘First of all, leakage of the Report is seriously condemnable; but this does not in any way discredit it as wrongly believed in some quarters. This consequence notwithstanding, I condemn in the strongest terms such leakage.
‘Secondly; and this is far more condemnable, the efforts of high officials of both the Lagos State Government and Federal Government to rubbish the said Report smacks of the highest level of irresponsibility, willful recklessness, deception and perfidy. The Commission of Inquiry was set up by the instrumentality of a State Law. Having issued its Report, it is for the State Government to either accept its findings and recommendations, or accept some of them, or reject them, through official action, not through reckless statements issued here and there. It is most embarrassing that whenever the government at any level is not favoured, whether rightly or wrongly, its officials throw caution to the wind and bare its fangs in a most indecorous manner. This is the shame of the century.
‘Enters the Minister of Information, Alhaji Lai Mohammed. Loquacious as ever, he literally pulled down the roof on the integrity of the panel members and the entire report. Shamelessly, he took a direct aim at the Report, even when he did not participate at the hearing, nor was he a member of the Panel. The Information Minister should know that under the twin doctrines of Implied Prohibition and Mutual Non-Interference, the Federal Government cannot take a swipe at the functions, actions and acts of a State agency like the Judicial Commission in the manner Lai Mohammed has done. This is a Federal, not a Unitary Government!
‘Besides, the Panel was headed by a Judge of the High Court; and only a court of law has the competence to pronounce on the validity of its Report. Enough of this show of shame and dry force.’
Credit: Daily Sun