LEVARD threatens contempt proceedings against Obasanjo

A group of lawyers and rights activists known as the Legal Vanguard for Rules of Law and Democracy, LEVARD, has come out strongly against a statement credited to former President, Olusegun Obasanjo where he called a Federal High Court judge “stupid and ignorant,” saying it will begin contempt proceedings against him if he does not retract his comments within seven days.
In a statement signed on Wednesday by its President, Toluwani Adebiyi, the body said it feared that if not “checked and vehemently resisted, this (Obasanjo’s statement) could mark the beginning of the journey to judicial disaster and inordinate subjugation of our legal system.”
Obasanjo was quoted as calling Justice Mohammed Idris of the Federal High Court “ignorant and stupid” for entering a judgment directing all past civilian Presidents from 1999 to account for the loot recovered from the late military dictator, Gen. Sani Abacha.

LEVARD, however, said on Wednesday that Obasanjo failed to treat the court with decency.
LEVARD declared, “The colourful Lord Coke once said that, ‘No matter how high you are, the law is higher than you’; no matter what Obasanjo assumes he is, he cannot be above the law of the land; he must not rubbish the law.
“He has not treated the court with decency…he cannot take advantage of the inability of judges to publicly react to such outbursts as the nobility and conduct of their offices demand.

“If he (Obasanjo) feels he is more than everybody and so can say anything to anybody, not to the court; the court cannot be desecrated, his act is contemptuous of the integrity of the court.”


They added that Obasanjo’s “action is laden with suspicion and this necessarily calls on the government to beam its searchlight to unveil the corrupt practices under the Obasanjo era.”
The group further urged the Attorney-General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, SAN, “to commence immediate execution of that judgment, (and) anyone found guilty or wanting in respect of the loot must be publicly exposed and dealt with.”
Also calling on the National Judicial Council, NJC, not to allow the former president’s statement slide so as “to protect the court and to prevent future irresponsible verbal onslaught on the judges.”
LEVARD, however, warned that failure of the ex-president to retract the statement, they “Shall take steps to move to the court to bring a contempt charge against him.”