Admin l Thursday, September21, 2017
IKEJA, Lagos, Nigeria – Vice President of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, Chief Tony Ubani has faulted proscription of Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB by the Federal Government on the basis that it is not registered under Nigerian law.
In a statement, Ubani, who is the 2nd Vice President of the NBA said what the Federal Government has done by rushing to court to get a legal stamp to the classification only vindicates people like him who described action of govermnent abinitio as unconstitutional.
Leading the pack of Nigerians who punctured the labeling of IPOB as a terror organisation was Senate President, Dr. Bukola Saraki, Human Rights Lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, Mike Ozekhome, SAN and others.
Ubani posited, “the ruling by the Federal High Court , Abuja on Wednesday shows that some of us were right when we said that the Nigerian Military was wrong to have pronounced IPOB a terrorist organization without following due process.
” It also showed that we were right when we told the South-east governors that they have no right under the law to proscribe IPOB. The proscription of any organization as stipulated by law is through a judicial process.
My opinion is that that judicial process has been complied with; though belatedly. The government has already dubbed it a terrorist organization; they have already proscribed it before now running to the court to give it a retroactive effect.
The issue now is if you say you have proscribed an organization and that organization is not registered in law, there is a problem. Our laws stipulate that only a juristic person can be sued. I believe IPOB is not registered under our laws. So there is a problem because the court has just proscribed an organization that is not registered under our laws. If you take a look at the court order, it says IPOB, whereas there is no entity known as IPOB under our laws. This is clearly a complex situation.
Why the issue of proscribing any organization is made a judicial process is such that any organization that has been wrongly proscribed, can come back to the court, asking it to reverse the order because the information given to the court through an exparte motion is wrong. The court will then look at the argument and merit in deciding whether to reverse itself. I think what IPOB has to do now is to proceed to the court to challenge the order.
Even if assuming without conceding that IPOB was properly registered under our law, does it qualify to be labeled as a terrorist organization based on our laws and argument advanced by the Attorney General. As it stand today, IPOB by way of the Federal High Court order remains a terrorist organization but that order can be challenged and set aside.”
