Facts emerge why detained Judges were hurriedly released

Mahmood Mohammed, the Chief Justice of
Nigeria, CJN, has confronted President
Muhammadu Buhari in a face-to-face
meeting in the Presidential Villa following
the weekend crackdown on federal judges
and two Supreme Court justices by the
country’s secret police, The Trent can
exclusively report.
The meeting, which held in the morning of
Monday, October 10, 2016, was at the
instance of the Honourable Justice
Mohammed, multiple sources reveal.
Present at the meeting were Lawal Daura,
the director-general of the Department of
State Security Services, DSS, which serves as
the country’s secret police and the president
of the National Industrial Court of Nigeria,
Babatunde Adejumo.
Our findings are that the meeting was very
tense and the chief justice did not mince
words when addressing the president on
the matter. The visibly infuriated CJN tongue-
lashed the president for violating the
democratic principles of separation of
powers and assuming the unconstitutional
status of “supervisor” of the judiciary, an
independent arm of government.
Justice Mohammed accused President
Buhari of victimizing the judges targeted in
the midnight crackdown by the DSS for
refusing to be intimidated by the secret
police over the matters of the election
petitions of Rivers and Akwa Ibom states.
According to one of our top inside sources,
the CJN exposed a series of scare and
intimidation tactics carried out by the DSS
director general, a kinsman to President
Buhari, to make the bench bow to its wishes
and overturn the judgement against the
current governors of two oil-rich states.
Mohammed expressly accused the DSS DG of
using the name of President Buhari in
carrying out what he called an
“unprecedented attempt to influence the
bench and pervert justice” in the country.
The president was visibly upset by the
revelations and repeatedly denied
knowledge of such harassment of of judges
by the DSS.
Mr. Daura attempted to deny knowledge of
such subterranean moves and claimed that
the judges that were arrested, in what the
secret police wrongly termed as “sting
operation”, were corrupt. A claim which saw
the CJN shout him down telling him to shut
up and sit down.
After lambasting the secret police boss,
Justice Mohammed proceeded to unreel
instances in which Daura contacted judges
handling the election petition cases claiming
that ruling in favour of the All Progressives
Congress, APC, candidates was “what
President Buhari wanted”. Again, the
president denies issuing such instructions.
The CJN also revealed that the minister of
transportation, Rotimi Amaechi offered the
judges millions of dollars to overturn their
ruling on the two election petitions. He said
the honourable justices rebuffed Amaechi
because they were hellbent on delivering a
sound judgment on the cases which had
been unduly sensationalised by politicians.
Justice Mohammed revealed that Amaechi
also said that he was acting on the orders of
the president and that in actual fact, the
judges arrested over the weekend were
those who refused to be corrupted by the
DSS and Amaechi and insisted on preserving
the independence and integrity of the
bench.
On this revelation, Buhari presented a
disturbed countenance, our sources say. The
president requested that the CJN puts down
his position which we are reliably informed
has been done.
Insiders revealed to The Trent that the
climate in Aso Rock is unusually tense
following the posture and damning
revelations by the CJN.
There are whispers in the corridors that
based on the gravity of the allegations
against the DSS director and Amaechi,
Buhari may let go of the duo to “clear his
name from the embarrassing episode’, a top
security source told our reporter.
President Buhari appointed Lawal Daura, his
kinsman from his hometown in Katsina on
July 2, as head of the DSS after firing Ita
Ekpeyong. Daura was recalled from
retirement as he had retired from the
service of the DSS when he reached the
mandatory age of 60 according to the Civil
Service rules of Nigeria. He is also a member
of Buhari’s political party, the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and served on
the security committee for Buhari’s
presidential campaign.
While the election petitions were being
heard at the courts, the INEC resident
electoral commissioners (RECs) for Akwa
Ibom, Austin Okojie, was detained and
tortured for 13 days and his Rivers State
counterpart, Gesila Khan , was also detained
for two weeks by Nigeria’s secret police. The
harassment, detention, and torture of
electoral officials of the two oil rich states
was reportedly connected with the interest
of President Buhari in reclaiming electoral
victory from main opposition party, the
People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in those
states.
None of the INEC officials detained by the
DSS have been charged with any crime and
the election petitions were eventually ruled
in favour of the PDP by the Supreme Court.