AdminSenior Advocate of Nigeria, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, has added his voice in countering the argument that all panels of inquiry on the EndSARS protest lacked legal competence.
Minister of State for Labour and Employment, Festus Keyamo had on Sunday night appeared on a Channels Television programme where he argued that all panels set up by state governments to probe police brutality and 2020 protests that ensued were illegal in competence. Keyamo, however noted that he was speaking as a lawyer and not as Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
In a short position paper he made available to Prime Business Africa early Monday morning, Adegboruwa, who had earlier raised the alarm that his life was in danger because of role in the Lagos State panel that indicted federal government’s security operatives in the controversial Lekki shootings, said, the EndSARS probe panels, especially that of Lagos State, was legal.
“The federal government,” he noted, “has recently muted the idea that all the Judicial Panels of Inquiry set up by the various States across the Federation, especially that of Lagos State, are illegal. It has never been part of our legal system in Nigeria, for a plaintiff who approached the court in the first instance, to turn around to challenge the legality or jurisdiction of the court.”
He argued that the #EndSARS Panels were set up at the behest of the Federal Government, through the National Economic Council. “In the case of the Lagos Panel, the Federal Government, through the Nigerian Army, voluntarily submitted itself to the jurisdiction of the Panel, the federal government called witnesses, it tendered documents and it made very lengthy presentations.”
In effect, Adegboruwa argued that a party cannot approbate and reprobate at the same time. Thus, a party who initiated a process and willingly and actively participated in that process, cannot turn around, after judgment, to plead illegality or absence of jurisdiction, simply because the outcome is unfavorable. We must strengthen our institutions to make them work.
“While we all await the White Paper from the Lagos State Government, it is important for government to build trust in the people in all its dealings and utterances.God bless Nigeria, Adegboruwa advised.
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