Withdraw Sagay’s Privileges As SAN, PDP Tells NBA, Others

 

Prof Itse Sagay

The Peoples Democratic Party in Lagos State has charged the Legal Practitioners Privileges Committee and the Legal Practitioners’ Disciplinary Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association and the courts to withdraw all the privileges that Prof Itse Sagay enjoys as a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

The party, in a statement by its state Publicity Secretary, Mr Taofik Gani, also called on President Muhammadu Buhari to immediately replace Sagay as the Chairman of the Presidential Advisory Committee against Corruption.

According to the Lagos PDP, the security agencies must arrest, interrogate and prosecute Sagay for “his inciting comments capable of provoking civil unrests in the country at large.”

Sagay had faulted Supreme Court’s rulings, which upheld the PDP as the winner of the 2019 general elections in Rivers and Zamfara states, and barred the All Progressives Congress from contesting offices.

The SAN, in a statement, said, “The Zamfara and Rivers state judgments are a national tragedy. We should not allow our legal system to throw up such unimaginable injustice.”

He described the Zamfara judgment as a travesty of justice and advised that the APC should insist on their “mandate” by approaching the Supreme Court for a review of the judgment.

But Gani said, “Prof Sagay exposed his hatred for the PDP when he described the Supreme Court judgment by positing that ‘in the next four years, Zamfara State will be governed by a party and politicians rejected by the electorate.’

“To the PDP, these words and stance are inciting and unbecoming of a senior lawyer and must be taken seriously as professional misconduct within the contemplation of Section 24(1)(a) and (b) of the rules of professional conduct.

“To us as a party in Lagos State and from where most of these false activists speak, Prof Sagay is no more a fit and proper personality to head a presidential advisory committee against corruption. We charge the LPPC, the LPDC, the NBA and the courts to withdraw all privileges Prof Itse Sagay enjoys as a SAN.”

Gani said Sagay had showed enough obvious partisanship and support for the APC, adding that one needed not wonder why all the APC chieftains were “saints” before the Sagay-led PACAC.

He said, “With Sagay as an adviser, the advised is at his own risk. It is very laughable that Sagay attempts to be an appellate court to the Supreme Court.”