Posted by Legislators flay pressure to remove Alamieyeseigha on
THERE were indications on Wednesday that Bayelsa State legislators may resist pressure from The Presidency to remove the Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who is on trial in London for money laundering offences.
THERE were indications on Wednesday that Bayelsa State legislators may resist pressure from The Presidency to remove the Governor, Chief Diepreye Alamieyeseigha, who is on trial in London for money laundering offences.
Some of the legislators on Wednesday said that since the governor was still presumed innocent until he was convicted, it would be improper to remove him before the conclusion of the trial.
The legislators, who craved anonymity, argued that they would prefer to make their stand known on the matter after the judicial process must have been completed.
One of the legislators said, "We cannot be used by anyone, however high up, to embarrass the leader of the Ijaw nation and the governor of the only Ijaw state who is currently being prevented from returning home from London on trumped-up charges and without due process.
'Since his illegal interception at the London Heathrow Airport on September 15, 2005, the British Police have continued to say they are not ready to start the governor's trial. What this means is that they have no evidence. You hold a man and then begin to look for evidence against him. This is a slap on the Nigerian nation."
They wondered why the Federal Government was desperate to remove Alamieyeseigha by sending the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Chief Bayo Ojo (SAN), to London to tell the British court that the governor would jump bail if allowed to return to Nigeria.
'By doing this, it is not Alamieyesigha that is being humiliated. It is Nigeria that is shaming itself in the eyes of the international community," one of the lawmakers added.
Instead of protecting its citizens abroad, a government in power is virtually begging another country to persecute its citizen. It is strange that this is happening to a citizen against whom no crime has been established yet."
The legislators hailed former President, Nigerian Bar Association, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), and renowned constitutional lawyer, Prof. Itse Sagay, for criticising the Federal Government's stance on the case
Both lawyers have described Ojo's London court appearance as unfortunate, with Olanipekun saying that "within our jurisprudence, the only cases where a Nigerian citizen could be canvassed against by his own government is when he is guilty of treasonable felony…What the statement of the attorney general means is that the governor of Bayelsa has been declared persona non grata in Nigeria. This is wrong and against all judicial authorities."
Sagay, on his own part, said that since this was a case between Alamieyeseigha and the British government, the Federal Government's intervention was "strange," adding that this development "has shown to the whole world those who are behind the ordeal of the Bayelsa state governor."
THE PUNCH, Thursday November 10, 2005