The consortium of lawyers who have approached the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, to commence committal proceedings against the director general of the State Security Service, (SSS) for disobedience to court order on the continued detention of suspended governor of Central Bank, Mr Godwin Emefiele, has accused the organisation of threatening to frame them up for terrorism and referring to them as Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN) lawyers.
At a media briefing in Abuja, on behalf of the lawyers by Mr Tijani Ahmed, following a viral tweet by the DSS on their official twitter handle in reaction to the processes filed by the consortium said the security agency is planning to frame them up as terrorists.
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In the tweet, the DSS was quoted as having written the following, “Charge and bail, overzealous uninformed IPOB/ESN lawyer Maxwell Okpara mobilises other likeminded lawyers against DGSS. Futile Efforts. Well, Nigerians, beware! This is in bad faith. Transferred aggression. A Biafran Republic agitator and outlawed IPOB counsel defending the suspended CBN governor. Is IPOB defending one of theirs? What a contradiction…..hmmm…what’s the connection? May Maxwell be properly educated on points of law, please.”
The lawyers claim that the tweet had now gone viral stating, “at about 6AM when we met this morning, the tweet was still there on the handle of the SSS. This was about 17 hours after it had been posted and had really gone. At that time, it had been seen by about 2 million people globally, generated over 3600 comments, retweeted almost 5000 times and liked more than 2500 times.”
The tweets which have been greeted by national outrage and condemnation are still on the handle of the security agency.
Furthermore, the lawyers listed several cases of disobedience to court order against Mr Bichi involving Igbo people and asserted that Mr Bichi must have been suffering from what they termed Igbophobia.
“In the same vein, the tweet by the SSS has also exposed very clearly to the world that the persecution Mr. Godwin Emefiele suffers today is largely due to the ethnic profiling as directed by the DG SSS. The fact that Mr. Emefiele is Igbo and attaining the height of CBN Governor to Mr. Bichi is an abomination hence his resolve to see that Emefiele is pulled down because to him, all Igbo are IPOB/ESN Terrorists” the group said.
Mr Tijani also said it seems clearly that Mr Bichi has declared war on lawyers and Igbo people and that the persecution being suffered by Emefiele is largely due to ethnic and political reasons asserting that it could not be a coincidence that several cases involving Igbo people were being serially disobeyed by the DG DSS.
The lawyers thereafter called for the sack of Mr Bichi from office for what they termed manifesting open hatred against an ethnic group. They also alleged that the attitude of the DG DSS would tarnish the image of President Tinubu and thanked the public for the overwhelming public condemnation that trailed the tweet.
Finally, the lawyers resolved to write to the UN, EU, UK and US governments, the President, CJN, NSA and also approach the court for the enforcement of their rights.