Senior Lawyers Urge DSS to Follow Court Order on CBN Governor

The attorneys continued by saying that all security services should follow the court’s directives up until the point at which an appeals court overturns them.

Senior Nigerian lawyers have asked the federal government to make sure that the Department of State Services (DSS) follows orders from the Federal High Court and an Abuja High Court that say they can’t hold or bother the governor of the Central Bank, Godwin Emefiele.

In a statement signed by Adetokunbo Olukayode, the senators asked Abubakar Malami, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, to make sure that the rule of law is followed completely. They also asked Malami to tell security agencies, especially the DSS, to follow court orders and not do anything that would make the current administration look bad to the rest of the world.

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“All security services must follow the court’s orders until an appeals court overturns them,” says the statement.

A senior advocate for Nigeria and human rights lawyer named Femi Falana said that Emefiele has not come to the country since the DSS accused him of giving money to terrorists.

Falana stated on Channels Television’s Sunday Politics, “I can say without any fear of disagreement that Mr. Godwin Emefiele is not in Nigeria; he hasn’t returned to the country because he has been proclaimed wanted by the state security forces.”

Falana added that if the DSS has solid evidence against the CBN governor, it need not obtain a court warrant before making an arrest. Emefiele asked the DSS to go ahead with Emefiele’s arrest when he got to Nigeria. He pointed out that the head of the central bank is not one of the people in Nigeria who are legally protected from arrest.