The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has directed all practicing lawyers in the country to boycott the courts for two days, between Tuesday, January 29, and Wednesday, January 30, in protest against the suspension of the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, last Friday by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The association said it was protesting against the constitutional infractions in the suspension of Onnoghen as CJN.
The decision was taken yesterday after an emergency meeting of the association’s national executive committee (NEC) held at the NBA House, Abuja.
The meeting, which was presided over by the NBA president, Paul Usoro, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), was attended by statutory NEC members of the NBA, including the national officers, past presidents, past general secretaries, branch chairmen, branch secretaries, branch NEC representatives and chairmen and secretaries of sections
The NBA had in an earlier statement condemned and rejected the suspension of Onnoghen by Buhari as it amounted to an attempted coup against the nation’s judiciary.
The association said the action of the executive arm of government “portends a slide into anarchy and complete deconstruction of the rule of law and due process.”
In a statement, Osoro described the action as “an absolute breach of the Constitution and the usurpation of the powers of the Senate and the Nigerian Judicial Council.”
The statement read: “The NBA unequivocally rejects and condemns this attempted coup against the Nigerian judiciary and evident suspension of the Nigerian Constitution by the executive arm of the Federal Government.
“The action of the executive portends a slide into anarchy and complete deconstruction of the rule of law and due process. It amounts to an absolute breach of the Constitution and the usurpation of the powers of the Senate and the NJC.
“It is unfortunate that the executive branch of government purports to suspend the CJN on the basis of an alleged ex parte order of the Code of Conduct Tribunal – the same tribunal that, to the knowledge of the executive, had, only the previous day, January 22, adjourned its proceedings to January 28, and has before it a motion on notice that is yet to be argued, seeking the same reliefs as were contained in the purported ex parte application, to wit, the suspension of the CJN, among others.”
Buhari had, while acting in compliance with an order issued by the CCT, suspended Onnoghen from office as the CJN. In his place, Justice Ibrahim Tanko, the next most senior Justice of the Supreme Court, was sworn in as the Acting CJN.
