TheCable

Itse Sagay, a professor of law, says the call for Rotimi Amaechi, minister of transportation, to step down is malicious and vindictive, and should be “ignored with complete ignominy”.

Describing Amaechi as one of the “brightest stars” of President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, Sagay said the bribery allegations against him were intended to undermine and weaken the federal government.

Sylvester Ngwuta and John Okoro, supreme court justices, had alleged that Amaechi attempted to bribe and to influence them to manipulate election appeals in Rivers, Akwa Ibom and Abia.

Though Amaechi denied the allegation, some people asked him to step aside pending investigation.

But in a statement on Thursday, Sagay said the allegations were diversionary, and that the judges were trying to pull the minister down.

“Two justices of the supreme court affected by the DSS raids of Saturday 8th October, 2016, have been quoted as stating that Hon minister of transport, Mr Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi once attempted to induce them to favour the APC in an election petition,” he said.

“This outburst by the two justices is surprising, considering that it is totally unrelated to be raids of their premises, their arrest and subsequent charges before our courts. Men of that status should not indulge in such diversionary activities in the midst of grave and ominous charges facing them.  I would have thought that they would use the time at their disposal to prepare their defences against the serious charges they are facing.

“In any case, given their statuses as supreme court justices, even in the middle of the adversity confronting them, they should not have engaged in a distraction totally incompatible with the dignity and respect that their high offices attract.

“This is intended to set the stage for charging the government with ineffectiveness and cluelessness.  In other words, it is an attempt to reduce the image and perception of this federal government to the low level, and deprive it of the service, input, ideas and productivity of some of its brightest stars.”

Sagay said it was improper for the judges to stoop so low to attempt to scandalise a government official who they feel is behind their predicaments.

“It is demeaning for them to abandon their legitimate defence in order to smear a high official of the Buhari government, which latter, they probably consider to be the source of their predicaments,” he said.

“Mere allegations cannot have enough weight to affect the position of such a high official as Amaechi, otherwise knowing the disposition of Nigerians for putting people down, no office holder will be safe in this country. It is therefore improper and ridiculous to compare the position of the justices in whose houses millions of naira and hundreds of thousands of dollars were recovered, to that of Amaechi against whom there is only the mere ipse dixit of the judges.

“This sudden anti-Amaechi narrative is consistent with the objectives and interests of the chief promoters and funders of judicial corruption during election petitions. These powerful opposition politicians are well known.  To be more specific, they are from Rivers and Akwa-Ibom states.  They are the ones who financed judicial corruptions and brought that great institution, the judiciary, to its knees, after the 2015 elections.”