LEGAL: Judge Walks Journalists Out Of Lagos Courtroom

• Journalists were, on Friday, ordered out of the courtroom during a hearing of a suit filed against the Lagos State government and five others by the Incorporated Trustees Association of Waste Managers of Nigeria, popularly called Private Sector Participation (PSP) operators.

Otodo Gbame residents attend court enmasse

The suit was filed by the PSP operators, who are seeking to stop the plan of the Lagos State government to relieve them of their job of managing domestic waste across the state. According to the waste managers, the state government has concluded plans to give their job to a foreign company, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited.

Joined with the government as respondents in the suit are the Commissioner for the Environment and Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice. Also joined are Visionscape Group, Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited and ABC Sanitation Solutions Limited.

At the hearing, Justice Taofiquat Oyekan-Abdullahi, the presiding judge who sits at the Tafawa Balewa Square Division of the Lagos State High Court, ordered reporters out her courtroom. She coarsely asked journalists to identify themselves among the crowd in the gallery and leave the courtroom or risk being fished out and embarrassed by the policeman attached to the court.

The judge's directive coincided with the complaint of Mr. S.A. Quadri, the state counsel, that journalists were always in court to cover proceedings in the case. Quadri claimed that journalists covering the case are being sponsored by the PSP operators. He said after filing a suit against the government, the PSP operators continued to use the media to fight the government.

Before ending his complaint, Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi bellowed: "Are there journalists here?" She advised them to leave or get embarrassed. Journalists in attendance immediately exited the courtroom.

In an application for interlocutory injunction filed through their lawyer, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, the PSP operators are asking the court to restrain the state government and its agents from stopping them from collecting, disposing and managing domestic solid wastes across the state.

The operators also want the court to stop the state government from giving their job to Visionscape Group, which has a partnership with two Nigerian companies,  Visionscape Sanitation Solutions Limited and ABC Solutions Limited.
All the respondents urged the court to dismiss the suit.

Earlier, the presiding judge had called for calm among the lawyers, as tempers flared in the course of arguments. While standing down the matter to bring about the desired calm, the judge noted that the case is a highly sensitive one, as it touches on the livelihood of people.

"What we're all trying to do is strike a balance and ensure that nobody has a problem in the course of this case. There's effort on the part of the state to do justice. I don't want you to think that it is only through legal means that we can solve this case," said Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi.

Mr. David Fadile, counsel to the PSP operators,  and counsel for Visionscape Group, Mr. Francis Akinlotan, had engaged in impassioned arguments over the legality of filling a further counter-affidavit.

Mr. Akinlotan told the judge that he had an application seeking the leave of the court to file a further counter-affidavit to enable him to respond to new issues raised by the operators' counsel in his further affidavit.

However, Mr. Fadile objected, branding the application as completely strange. "You cannot seek the leave of the court to do what does not exist in law," Fadile argued. Mr. Akinlotan maintained that his application was not strange, saying there was a Court of Appeal authority to that effect which, however, he could not cite.

But he recalled that Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi had allowed such in the case of Olukoya Ogungbeje and the Registered Trustees of the Nigerian Bar Association. In her response, Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi said she remembered the case and directed the court registrars to look for the case file as she stood the matter down.

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Human Righ Crusader Ozhekome flays Kanu’s bail condition, urges lawyers to file variation appeal

• ABUJA-HUMAN rights crusader and constitutional lawyer, Chief Mike Ozhekome, yesterday, carpeted Justice Binta Nyako,over her Tuesday’s bail condition on leader of the Indigenous people of Biafra, IPOD, Nnamdi Kanu. 

• This was even as he hailed the judge for her action, saying it was a demonstration of rare courage by the judiciary against the executive overbearing influence. 

• Ozhekome ,who said bail conditions were simply to ensure attendance of a person in court,noted that any bail condition that becomes excessive or punitive, loses its purpose, function and goal.

Ozhekome

To this end, he urged lawyers to the IPOD leader to immediately file application before the same trial judge, Justice Binta Nyako, for variation of the bail terms to more favourable ones. In a statement he released last night, Ozhekome noted that such application ”ll make Kanu a human being once more.”

”Bail conditions are simply to ensure the attendance of a person in court, and nothing more. Once excessive or punitive, bail loses its purpose, function and goal.

 ”I urge Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyers to immediately file an application before the same Justice Binta, for variation of the bail terms to more favourable ones, that will make Kanu a human being once more,”he insisted.

 ”I urge the Nigerian judiciary to stand up “gidigba”, to defend the rights of all Nigerians against executive lawlessness, judicial timidity and legislative rascality. God bless Nigeria and Nigerians,”he further said.

 The full text of the statement which he captioned ”Nnamdi Kanu’s travail:A bare bail devoid of liberty”,read thu: ” I congratulate Justice Binta Nyako for being courageous enough to even grant bail at all to IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, on health grounds.

 ”This is predicated on the truism that the Judiciary has been so humiliated, browbeaten, terrorized and emasculated by the Executive, that it takes extraordinary courage and daring bravado, for a Judge to even grant bail to a much vilified Nnamdi Kanu, whose only “crime” is that he seeks self determination for his repressed, oppressed, suppressed and marginalized indigenous people of Biafra, a right recognized even by the UNO and AU in all self – determination instruments.

 ”The catch here however, is that in granting the bail, the Judge, apparently trying to tread softly, took back with the right hand what she gave with the left hand. ” Bail is a constitutional right. It is guaranteed by section 35(5) of the 1999 Constitution, with or without conditions attached.

 But any conditions so attached to bail must be such that the grant of bail is itself not rendered meaningless and impotent as in the Nnamdi case. Kanu’s bail conditions are outrightly stringent, punitive, discriminatory, profiling and stereotyping. Hear them:

1.  ”He must produce 3 sureties, who must deposit the sum of 100m each (a ready recipe for corruption). ”One of the sureties must be a highly respected Jewish leader since Kanu practices Judaism as his religion (discrimination on the basis of religion).
2.   Produce a highly placed person of Igbo extraction (discrimination on the basis of place of origin and ethnic group).
3.  ”Produce a respected person who resides and owns landed property in Abuja (a call for the elitist money bags). 
4. Must not attend any rally or grant an interview (breach of freedom of movement and speech). ”Must not be in a crowd exceeding 10 persons (denial of freedom of Association). Must surrender his Nigerian and British passports (denial of freedom of movement).
5. Must sign an undertaking to be available for trial at all times (normal. This is the main purpose of bail). ”His wedding ring and reading glasses to be given back to him (thank God for tokenism). 
6. Must provide monthly update on Kanu’s health (yes, to ensure his health is improving). ”Some of the bail conditions are not only troubling, unsetting and punitive, but are simply unconstitutional, as briefly highlighted above.

 ”Section 42(1) of the 1999 Constitution provides that “a citizen of Nigeria of a particular community, ethnic group, place of origin, sex, religion or political opinion shall not, by reason only that he is such a person:-

 ”(a) be subjected either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any executive or administrative action of the government, to disabilities or restrictions to which citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions are not made subject to; or

”(b) be accorded either expressly by, or in the practical application of, any law in force in Nigeria or any such executive or administrative action, any privilege or advantage that is not accorded to citizens of Nigeria of other communities, ethnic groups, places of origin, sex, religions or political opinions.

 ”(2) No citizen of Nigeria shall be subjected to any disability or deprivation merely by reason of the circumstances of his birth. ”It is crystal clear from these constitutional provisions that the stringent bail conditions granted to Nnamdi have clearly discriminated against him and subjected him to “certain disabilities or restriction” on the basis of his religion, place of birth, political opinion and ethnic group.

”What the bail conditions are simply saying is that it will be illegal, forbidden and contrary to the bail conditions were Kanu to do the following:

 ”(a) Kanu cannot be received by a multitude of his village people, kindred and kinsmen, who have missed his presence since his mindless incarceration over one and half years ago, contrary to the right to freedom of Association granted by section 40 of the 1999 Constitution.

 ”(b) That Kanu cannot express his right to freedom of expression clearly guaranteed by section 39 of the Constitution.

 ”(c) That Kanu cannot exercise his freedom of movement guaranteed by section 41 of the Constitution.

 ”(d) That Kanu cannot receive sympathizers, well wishers and political Associates, once they are more than 10.

 ”(e) That Kanu cannot freely exercise, without being monitored, his freedom of religion and conscience contrary to section 38 of the Nigerian Constitution.

 ”(f) That Kanu cannot, at any given time, even in his household or larger family setting, host more than 10 people (ludicrous; unnatural!).

 ”(g) That Kanu cannot even visit any hospital to take care of his health, because the hospital staff of Doctors, nurses, para-medical staff and other patients, must surely exceed 10 (contrary to section 17(3)(c) of the Constitution.

 ”(h) That Kanu cannot attend church service or the synagogue worship to glorify God in thanksgiving for his release, since such place of worship will harbour hundreds if not thousands, of people (contrary to section 10 and 38 of the Constitution).

 ”(i) That Kanu cannot even go to a busy motor park, airport, seaport, Parks and Gardens, Cinema hall, theatre, to transport himself, watch films or relax, or even go to Shoprite to shop. ”(j) That Kanu cannot deliver lectures to students, or groups, or participate in seminars, workshops, summits, conferences, etc., as these involve many people.

 ”(k) That by way of summary, Kanu should remain a hermit, marooned like Robinson Crusoe in the 1719 novel of the same name, by Daniel Defoe, who spent over 28 years as a castaway, after he was washed up on the shores of a deserted island, near the mouth of Oronoco River in South America. ”Day by day, we subject the Nigerian society to bottomless ridicule and derision in the comity of Nations.”

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