President Buhari reacts over arrest of judges

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President
Muhammadu Buhari has made his first official reaction to the arrest of
seven senior judges between Friday night and Saturday morning.
Mr.
Buhari said the raids on the judges residence by the State Security
Service, SSS, was an assault on corruption and not on the judiciary.

Seven
judges, including two of the Supreme Court, were arrested in the raids,
condemned by lawyers and rights groups, and are expected to be charged
to court from tomorrow.
The president in a statement by his media
adviser, Garba Shehu, described the raids as ‘surgical’ saying due
process was followed in the arrests.
“The Presidency has received
assurances from the DSS that all due processes of the law, including the
possession of search and arrest warrants were obtained before the
searches,” he said.

Read Mr. Shehu’s full statement below:
The
Presidency assures that the President reserves his highest respect for
the institution of the judiciary as the third arm of government.
To this end, the President will not do anything to undermine its independence.

President
Buhari remains a committed democrat, in words and in his actions, and
will not take any action in violation of the constitution.
The
recent surgical operation against some judicial officers is specifically
targeted at corruption and not at the judiciary as an institution.
In
a robust democracy such as ours, there is bound to be a plurality of
opinions on any given issue, but there is a convergence of views that
the country has a corruption problem that needs to be corrected.
But reports by a section of the media are giving us cause for concern.
In
undertaking the task of reporting, the media should be careful about
the fault lines they open. It is wrong to present this incident as a
confrontation between the executive and judicial arms of government.
The
Presidency has received assurances from the DSS that all due processes
of the law, including the possession of search and arrest warrants were
obtained before the searches.
To suggest that the government is acting outside the law in a dictatorial manner is to breach the interest of the state.
Source: premium times

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