Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike has stated that he does not take the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Yakubu Maikyau, or human rights lawyer Femi Falana seriously.
WITHIN NIGERIA reports that the governor stated this on Tuesday while reacting to their calls for the release of All Progressives Congress (APC) lawyers arrested in the state.
Remember that the three APC lawyers detained on Saturday, April 1 at a hotel in Port Harcourt were said to be working on a petition for the Rivers APC in the March 18 governorship election.
Maikyau and Falana, in separate statements, condemned the lawyers’ arrest and urged the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Usman Baba, to order their release.
The Rivers State Police Command, on the other hand, stated that the lawyers were arrested on suspicion of forgery but were released hours later.
In a live media chat on Tuesday, Wike expressed surprise at the NBA president’s demand for the lawyers’ release, adding that he no longer takes Falana seriously.
The governor stated that instead of calling for the lawyers’ immediate release, both senior lawyers should have requested that the police investigate them.
Wkke contended that no one should interfere with a police investigation, emphasising that the security agency should have acted on intelligence that something suspicious was going on.
He said:
There is nothing wrong if you have intelligence that people are producing INEC documents in a hotel and in the police arresting them.
What we expected is for the police to investigate: Were they really printing INEC documents or not? And not for people to say, ‘They went and arrested lawyers that were preparing for election petitions.’
Does it mean because you say lawyers perpetrated it, therefore they cannot be arrested? Of course, I don’t take Femi Falana seriously. NBA president issued a statement that the lawyers must be released. It was so surprising.
Why not say, ‘Police, if you say you arrested lawyers believing that you have intelligence on this, we’re giving you within 24 hours to make sure they are charged to court or you come out with a report’?
You can’t use us to be popular among lawyers because the NBA president knows that his own administration is not doing well.
And so, the only way they can show that they’re doing well is by coming out to say, ‘Release the lawyers.
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