ABUJA – Barely 24-hours after President Goodluck Jonathan inaugurated the Committee on Dialogue and Peaceful Resolution of Security Challenges in the North, an Abuja based legal practitioner, Mr. Silas Onu, Thursday, approached the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, asking it to abort plans by the Federal Government to grant amnesty to the Boko Haram Islamic sect.

Besides, Onu, who maintained that granting amnesty to the sect would entrench a very dangerous precedent in the national polity, also prayed the court to issue a consequential order halting the continuation of amnesty programme across the country.

He urged the high court to go ahead and halt further payments to ex-militants in the oil rich Niger Delta region were President Jonathan hails from.

It will be recalled that the federal government had in June 2009 approved an offer of unconditional amnesty for members of the Niger Delta militants.

The government, on Wednesday, inaugurated a 27-man committee with a mandate to fashion out modalities with a view to getting insurgent groups in the Northern part of the country to embrace amnesty.

Meantime, in an originating summons he filed before the high court yesterday, Onu, contended that the office of the President has no constitutional powers to grant amnesty to “any group of persons or individuals who have not been charged with or convicted of any criminal offence created by an act of the Senate and House of Representatives” by virtue of section 1 and 175 of the 1999 constitution.

Those joined as defendants in the suit include, President Jonathan, the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, House of Representatives, and the Attorney General of the Federation.

The plaintiff, among other things, urged the court to determine whether the President has the powers to set up an amnesty project and expend tax payers’ monies for the running and maintaining of the beneficiaries.

He further wants the court to determine whether the Senate and House of Representatives “who have not enacted any laws in accordance to sections 11 (1) and 3(3) of the 1999 constitution can appropriate funds or accommodate or permit howsoever the use of public funds for the running of any amnesty programme, or maintenance of any group of persons or individuals who have been granted amnesty by the President.”

Read more >>> http://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/04/amnesty-to-boko-haram-lawyer-asks-court-to-stop-jonathan/

GEJ - RIP - MUMU

Nwa_Nimo: GEJ - RIP - MUMU

He's not dead yet.

Good point of law! I am waiting to see how the learned judges will react to this suit.