The Coalition of Northern Groups (CNG) has written to the US Embassy in Nigeria, requesting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari be treated fairly.
Remember that the FBI had requested Kyari’s extradition to America so that he might face charges in connection with a $1.1 million scheme involving Ramon Abbas a.k.a. Hushpuppi, a self-confessed fraudster.
However, the CNG in the petition signed by its spokesman, Abdul-Azeez Suleiman, expressed worry over “the trajectory introduced around Kyari’s case.”
It said: “A number of fundamental procedural lapses in the conduct of the investigation which tend not only to threaten the sovereign status of Nigeria, but also infringe on its citizen’s rights and civil liberties; threatens the rule of law and confronts the humanity and civilization that the people United States of America stands for.”
“We also note that the FBI might have breached another fundamental criminal justice procedure by not according Mr Kyari the benefit of being heard before going ahead with the purported indictment by an American Court in the US for an offence purportedly committed in Nigeria, triable under Nigerian laws, by Nigerian courts and on Nigerian land
“A breach of decorum and negligence of procedure might have also occurred when the FBI hurriedly published the purported indictment online without first intimating the Nigerian authorities and hearing the accused’s case,” the petition said.
The CNG cited Articles 6 and 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Right, Section 36(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), and the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights which affirms that everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
Reminding the US that its bilateral friendship with Nigeria is guided by the principles of sovereignty, promotion of peace and the standards that guides legitimate interference, the CNG warned that their intervention, exclamations and actions should not be drawn to discountenance the right of the Nigerian state to protect the legal rights of its citizens.
“Let it also be clear that there is a mounting public concern that the action of the FBI could suggest that the US might wilfully be participating in Nigeria’s current political chase game and playing the card of the gangup of regional and ethnic propagandists against northern interests.
“It is therefore important that our friends in the US understand what a distabilised Nigeria will mean to the entire sub-Saharan region.
“As the most populous country on the continent and one that continuous to influence peace and stability across the sub-continent, any breakdown of law and order will further make dangerous the situation in terms of regional security, international cohesion, migration and other challenges that will affect Africa and beyond,” the petition said.
