NBA and the DSS ‘sting’ operation

It is a sad commentary on the esteemed repository of learning and the custodians of law, that they saw no need of seeking legal resolution first, before declaring a state of emergency in the judiciary, with all its far-reaching implications for what it termed ‘Gestapo style abductions’ of the seven highly respected federal judges. This […]

It is a sad commentary on the esteemed repository of learning and the custodians of law, that they saw no need of seeking legal resolution first, before declaring a state of emergency in the judiciary, with all its far-reaching implications for what it termed ‘Gestapo style abductions’ of the seven highly respected federal judges. This action taken in haste is as premature as it is unnecessarily exaggerated.
Indeed under some special circumstances, in which theft and possession of stolen things are explicitly mentioned, even a private person can effect an arrest where reasonable grounds exist for suspicion and is even encouraged by law to do so.
Then what more of the DSS/SSS which are established by law? Indeed they are legally backed to detect and prevent offence and to effect arrests in conditions that have a bearing to the issues of national security, including but not explicitly limited to intergroup conflicts, terrorism, and threats to law and order.
The designation of internal security, as provided for in the constitution does not necessarily restrict the DSS from discharging what the law perceives here as a civic duty, because DSS operatives are citizens first before anything else; duly empowered even in this private capacity by set precedents.
And now as officers of the law in addition, they can even be charged with at least negligence of duty should they fail to effect arrests under the same circumstances for which the private person is only encouraged doing so.
Granted that the issue can be interpreted for and against with equal weight, this fact alone provides even more reason for the NBA which knows better to tread with even greater caution and seek legal resolution first.
Evidently, the NBA, acting on the pretext of entrenching adherence to constitutional provisions and due process is in reality, intent on hindering the anti-corruption war and or protecting the innocent judges from arrest, investigation and possible prosecution. Or so it seems.
In retrospect, I for one have not known what warnings or deadlines the NBA had ever issued in condemnation of or  sympathy to the high number of unconvicted inmates (80%); all about fifty two thousands of them, languishing in the difficult conditions of our prisons.
Incidentally, these are citizen-victims of the inefficient judiciary, corruption in official circles and the indifference and silence of outspoken individuals and associations like the NBA which choose to be selective.
Apparently, this avoidable incarceration of thousands of our citizens, being ‘insignificant’, has either escaped the notice of the NBA or that it finds it rather more tolerable than the ‘abductions’ of the seven judges on whose behalf they warned of dire consequences.
The basic principles of the rule of law dictate that all citizens, without discrimination, are equal before the law. And of all bodies, the NBA has the greatest obligation to society to dispassionately uphold these principles.
Mustapha Aminu Yusuf, Tukuntawa Qtrs, Kano, [email protected]