The Executive Secretary of National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Tony Ojukwu
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has condemned the invasion of Abuja residence of Justice Mary Odili of the Supreme Court and called for the prosecution of those responsible for the unlawful act.
Security operatives who claimed to be under the “Joint Panel Recovery unit of the Federal Ministry of Justice” made up of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, the Nigeria Police Force and the Ministry of Justice had stormed Justice Mary Odili residence,
The security operatives had claimed they were acting on information from a whistleblower, Aliyu Umar and a search warrant they obtained from Chief Magistrate Emmanuel Iyanna .
The search warrant was approved by Chief Magistrate, Emmanuel Iyanna on October 29, 2021.
The Executive Secretary of the NHRC, Mr Tony Ojukwu made the call on Monday when spoke on the incident.
In a statement signed by Mrs Fatimah Agwai Mohammed, Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the commission. Mr. Ojukwu described the incident at Justice Odili’s house as violation of her rights to privacy, integrity of her judicial personality, premises and office.
”The perpetrators must therefore be made to account for their professional misconduct by arresting them, prosecuting them.
”She also deserves a public apology from those responsible for their professional misconduct.
“These are the only deterrents that can forestall future desecration of the rights to privacy, integrity of the person, residence and office of our judicial officers especially at that level”, he said.
The judiciary, he said, is a very important arm of the government that should not be ridiculed under any circumstance and inexperienced law enforcement officers must be made to know this.
” The independence of the judiciary must be respected at all times.
” Time has come to punish this kind of professional misconduct by erring law enforcement officers to forestall total destruction of the integrity of judicial offices and the Judiciary.
” This should be condemned by all well meaning Nigerians in the interest of our nascent democracy, independence of the judiciary and respect for human rights and rule of Law” Ojukwu stated.
He said that the Commission will not relent in its efforts to continue to train and retrain the law enforcement officials to always mainstream human rights in their operations