• calls on immediate resignation, prosecution of raided judges

By Ayo Alonge

A group, under the aegis of Human Rights and Anti-corruption Coalition, has backed the recent raid on some judges by the Department of State Service (DSS), while adjudging the action as a plus for the Federation Government of Nigeria.

The group, in a protest held in Ikeja, Lagos, on Wednesday, bemoaned the alleged corrupt practice of the raided judges labelled as ‘rogue judges’.

According to the statement, signed and read out by the coordinator of the group, Desmond abiona, the group said that “the arrest of seven judge of various courts exposed how bad the cancer of corruption has spread in our polity. We mourn not just because these judicial officers have been fooling us. We mourn because they were still able to get gullible citizens that are fighting for them by condemning the sequence of events and the process of their arrests. Suddenly, arrests that were executed with valid warrants are being criticized by the same people who have been shortchanged by rogue judges all their lives. It is simply inconceivable.
“A few people might have bought into the lies that there is a clamp down on the judiciary to make it pliable to the executive arm but we challenge those that have been indicted or arrested to dare come to equity with clean hands. We dare them to apply the same test of the law that they have applied to the masses on themselves and see if they will not spend the remainder of their natural lives in jail without the possibility of state pardon.
In the coming days, we are aware that these corrupt judges have commissioned agents to recruit youths to hold protests at which their covert spokespersons will lay the allegation of witch-hunt. We however want to clearly set out here that arrest of judges, or anyone found to have been corrupt is not with-hunt, it is not politics and definitely it is not clamping down on freedoms.

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“The men and women who threatened our democratic freedom with their avarice have no right walking free when indicted, they should face the law they profess and bear their punishments if convicted.
“The Nigeria Police Force can tell of their frustration in the hands of corrupt judges who turn psychopathic robbers lose on our streets for money. Every family that has ever lost a loved one to the hails of bullets fired by judge-pampered robbers would attest to the fact that a corrupt judge is worse than a robber in that he wields a more deadly weapon as the scales of justices is superior to firearms,” the statement reads.

Attributing the menace of kidnapping and armbed robbery in the society to corrupt practices evidenced in the judiciary, the group lashed the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) for allegedly aiding and abbeting corruption in the judiciary through criticising the action of the DSS on the raided judges.

“Has anyone ever wondered why many of the killer kidnappers are not first timers? It is because corrupt judges always set them free everytime security agencies release them. And yet, even the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), whose members have been fair game to kidnappers can come out to speak in favour of the corruption that is keeping criminals on our streets.
“How many terrorists have we successfully convicted and put away for good? Not many. Corrupt judges will not allow it. They will rather receive bribes and allow killers roam the land with explosive belts and AK47 than deploy the judiciary as a tool for curbing terrorism.
“Modern slavery exists in Nigeria thanks to the corrupt ones among our judges. They are the ones who receive hard currencies from foreign investors and experts to keep the rest of us who cannot part with bribes subservient. They subvert the very nation they swore to serve,” it said.

The group, however, demanded that the raided judges resign and charged to court with immediate effect.