Group urges Buhari to respect limit of executive powers

Access to justice (A2J) has urged President Muhammadu Buhari to respect the limits of executive powers.

A2J in a statement signed by Joseph Otteh, its director and Daniel Aloaye, programme office in reaction to the rule of law being subject to national security comment of Mr. president said adherence to rule of law compatible with national security.

They urged the president not to misuse executive powers on the grounds of ‘national security’.

It said: “The President must also resist the temptation to use rhetoric and euphemisms associated with brutal, despotic, non-democratic governments in eras quite different from now to define what national or state security is.

“State or National Security ought not to be the parochial interest of any government, or the security, for that matter, of that government; it is not the peculiar interest a government has with respect to specific people or their causes, or its interest of stifling political opposition.

According to the group, the President’s remarks come against the background of his government’s persistent disregard of court orders and judgments, repression of media freedom, gross human rights abuses by security and law enforcement agencies, intimidation of, and interference with the functions of other branches of government.

National security, it said, did not require the government to behave the way it has done in all of these cases, and clearly did not require security forces to commit large scale extrajudicial killings, or for the police to arrest and imprison female protesters for protesting!