Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project (SERAP) has urged the
President of the Senate Dr Bukola Saraki and Speaker of the House of
Representatives Mr Yakubu Dogara to urgently withdraw the patently
unconstitutional directives to some banks to unfreeze former First Lady
Mrs Patience Jonathan’s accounts.
The organization said that, “the directives to banks to unfreeze Mrs
Jonathan’s accounts amount to mingling of the executive and judicial
powers in the National Assembly. Checks and balances should ideally help
contribute to the rule of law and strengthening our democratic
dispensation but if one branch of government grows too strong and
overreaching the country might be in trouble.”
In a statement today signed by SERAP deputy director Timothy Adewale the
organization said that, “It’s an affront to our constitutional democracy
for the National Assembly to turn itself into a tool for checkmating the
country’s justice system, especially the prosecution of grand corruption.
Rather than helping Mrs Jonathan’s desire to achieve justice for what she
may consider to be violations of her human rights, such directives are
doing exactly the opposite and politicising the criminal justice process.”
The Senate had last week decided that Mrs Jonathan’s accounts should be
unfrozen, saying that some of the accounts including with Stanbic IBTC,
First Bank, Union Bank, Diamond Bank, Fidelity Bank, Ecobank and Bank
Zenith Bank were frozen based on some administrative lapses. It claimed
that the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) used the banks to
close the accounts without due process of law. The House of
Representatives in September gave a similar directive to the banks to free
the former first lady’s blocked accounts.
But SERAP said that, “Nigerians are concerned about their lawmakers’
thirst for power, and about the National Assembly aggrandizing its
legislative powers without sufficient checks and constitutional scrutiny
and validity. The National Assembly ought to focus the exercise of its
legislative powers solely on making laws for the peace, order and good
government of our country, addressing only matters of prime national
concern, and when necessary, checking the excesses of the executive
branch.”
The statement reads in part: “The directives purportedly unfreezing the
accounts of Mrs Jonathan will not give the public the confidence that the
National Assembly will change its ways and embrace the rule of law.”
“The National Assembly should not show itself as incapable and unwilling
to address the concerns of Nigerians about its operations and apparent
lack of transparency. These kinds of interventions by the National
Assembly could portray our lawmakers in the eyes of Nigerians as
forgetting what they are in Abuja to do.”
“The Senate and House of Representatives should advise Mrs Jonathan to
seek appropriate judicial remedies if she feels the criminal justice
mechanisms have violated her human rights. That’s the essence of the rule
of law, separation of powers and checks and balances. The supposed
directives to banks have unfortunately again put the reputation of the
National Assembly at stake.”
“What Nigerians want and deserve is a balanced sharing of constitutional
powers for the sake of the public good, and not ‘Imperial National
Assembly’, a National Assembly that sits on its throne in Abuja and treats
Nigerians as serfs in their fiefdoms.”
“If the body that makes law also controls its execution, implementation
and interpretation, it can effectively tailor the laws to help itself and
its friends and hurt its perceived enemies. It can thwart the virtue of
impartial general law-making by rendering it a tool for singling out.”