Lagos lawyer, Mr Femi Falana, speaks on the controversial deportation of the leaders of Southern Cameroun, some of whom he described as naturalised Nigerians and led by Ayuk Julius Tabe, from Nigeria.



Femi Falana
The Cameroon government announced recently that leaders of the Anglophone movement, led by Mr Julius Ayuk Tabe in Nigeria, were handed over to Cameroon. How did this happen?

It is true that a number of Cameroonian refugees and asylum seekers, who were illegally arrested and detained by the Federal Government, were arrested and deported from Nigeria to Cameroon on Friday, January 26, 2018. When we received information of the plan to deport them, we rushed to the Federal High Court to stop the illegal plan.

We also reached out to the Comptroller-General of Immigration, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Office of the United Nations Commissioner for Refugees in Nigeria. As soon as the Commission confirmed the information, it dispatched a letter to the Federal Government pointing out that Nigeria had a legal obligation under international law not to deport the detained Cameroonians.

But in a demonstration of reckless impunity, the National Security Adviser, Major-General Babagana Monguno (ret.) deported our clients in defiance of the intervention of the United Nations and the pending suit in court.

Out of shame, the National Security Adviser could not disclose the deportation of our clients from Nigeria but the government of Cameroon decided to celebrate the deportation and threatened to prosecute our clients for terrorism. I have protested the deportation to President Buhari and demanded that our clients be returned to Nigeria without delay.

You were one the lawyers mentioned in the case. What role did you play?

My learned colleague, Mr. Abdul Oroh, is handling the case with our law firm. Both of us were at the High Commission of Cameroon last (penultimate) Tuesday to demand for access to our clients who are currently held incommunicado in Cameroon. We were asked to submit a letter to that effect and we have done so.

Does Nigeria have any extradition treaty with Nigeria? What laws were respected and what laws were violated?

Nigeria has no extradition treaty with Cameroon. For that reason, the Federal Government could not file extradition proceedings in any local court. Hence, the deportation was carried out outside the ambit of the Extradition Act. No law was respected whatsoever but many laws were breached by the Federal Government which has continued to exhibit authoritarian tactics and rule of might under a democratic dispensation that is supposed to be anchored on the rule of law.

In deporting our clients, the Federal Government violated Section 1 of the National Commission for the Refugees Act which prohibits the expulsion, extradition or deportation of any person who is a refugee to the frontiers of any country where his life or freedom would be threatened on account of his membership of a particular group or political opinion or whose life may be endangered for any reason whatsoever.

The Federal Government also breached the human right of our clients to enter Nigeria, reside, seek and obtain asylum as guaranteed by Article 12 (3) of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act. The Act further provides that every individual shall have the right, when persecuted, to seek and obtain asylum in other countries in accordance with the laws of those countries and international conventions. Apart the violation of those laws, the Federal Government breached its legal obligations under the 1951 United Nations Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and the 1969 Organization of African Unity Convention on Refugees which guarantee the rights of refugees and asylum seekers in Nigeria to protection.

Among those said to be arrested were those having Nigerian citizenship and working here; and others with refugee status or seeking same. What does this scenario tell us about the Buhari administration?

We have established that three of the deportees are naturalized citizens while others are recognized refugees and political asylum seekers in Nigeria.

Twelve of our clients who are the leaders of the people of Southern Cameroon have been living in Nigeria for several years. Some are lecturers at the Ahmadu Bello University and the American University in Yola. Three of them are lawyers.

Those who are not refugees among them have been granted permanent residency status in Nigeria. You can only expel a foreigner from your country if he violates the law. Even then an asylum seeker cannot be turned over to the authorities of a country that is likely to persecute him. Under no condition can a Nigerian citizen be deported from the country.

The only time that a Nigerian citizen had been deported was in 1980 when the Shehu Shagari regime expelled Mr. Shugaba Abdulraman Darman and dumped him in Chad. The deportation was declared illegal by the High Court which ordered the Federal Government to bring him back to the country. The court also awarded damages in favour of the deportee.

The illegal deportation of the naturalized Nigerians and the refugees has caused a huge embarrassment to the Federal Government because there is no legal justification for it. Can you believe that the National Commission for Refugees, the Immigration Department and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs were not consulted before the deportation of our clients was carried out?

Some people look back from the arrest and transfer of Charles Taylor under Obasanjo, to the inaction of Jonathan when Libya was under attack and now transferring people who fear for their lives to a government they are running away from and the question of Nigerian leadership in Africa. What do you have to say?

It is trite that the foreign policies of a government are dictated by its domestic policies. The case of Charles Taylor is totally different from this one. The Special Court for Sierra Leone set up by the Security Council of the United Nations had issued a warrant for the arrest of the ex-Liberian president for crimes against humanity. Nigeria was under a duty under international law to turn him over to the court.
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full story:
http://latestnewsafrica.com/nigeria/under-buhari-nigerian-govt-has-resorted-to-authoritarian-tactics-femi-falana/

I just dont know how a person like Buhari is nigeria president .

Bubu taking us backwards to stone age era where we lived by no laws and proper governance. The amount of laws bubu has broken is enough to get him hanged on a tree. The senate unfortunatly is a coward institution that has failed to impeach the serial law breaker. What a shame! Nigeria is now a laughing stock to the international community. No thanks to the dura born.

So Falana is saying he is just knowing that Buhari was once & still remains an authoritarian cum dictator
It's a shame how formerly revered men reduced themselves to nothing because of politics.

Falana is right, buhari is also right.
Falana is defending his client right. Buhari is defending Nigerians from external attack and the capturing of terrorists like shekau and nnamdi KANU

We

limeta:
I just dont know how a person like Buhari is nigeria president .

it is somebody like buhari that fit this great country.

If not buhari time, your late nnamdi KANU and your new supreme leader shekau would have be disturbing the peace of this nation

Falana you are one of those that brought the tyrant to power.

You even offered to go to court to defend his non-possession of minimum educational qualification.

You cut your nose to spite your face, so enjoy your change and stop disturbing the peace of the country.

buhariguy:
it is somebody like buhari that fit this great country.

If not buhari time, your late nnamdi KANU and your new supreme leader shekau would have be disturbing the peace of this nation

You mean terrorist Buhari

limeta:



You mean terrorist Buhari

how can a terrorist fight against terrorist.
How can the corrupt go against corruption

buhariguy:
it is somebody like buhari that fit this great country.

If not buhari time, your late nnamdi KANU and your new supreme leader shekau would have be disturbing the peace of this nation

Thats until Buhari's herdsmen kinsmen go on their routine killing spree and are rewarded with cattle colonies for a job well done?

This is true.

limeta:
I just dont know how a person like Buhari is nigeria president .

Was a mistake that must be corrected in the next poll.

buhariguy:
how can a terrorist fight against terrorist.
How can the corrupt go against corruption

Ask Google

Auto-democratic goofment

No now you wake up Mr Falana?

Weren't you part of those who polished and endorsed him?

You never see something

Vikkie14:
Ask Google

I will rather ask idiotic pigs of Biafra