The Campaign for Democracy and Human Rights Liberty Access and Peace Defenders’Foundation (HURIDE) have asked the National Judicial Council (NJC) to sanction Justice Ekaette Obot with immediate effect for displaying judicial recklessness in detaining a human rights lawyer, Mr Inibehe Effiong Inibehe Effiong.
The rights groups gave Justice Obot seven days from the date of publishing this story to release Effiong or face the wrath of the human rights community in the country.
In a statement released in Enugu, they threatened to stage the mother of all rally in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom state capital to protest the growing abuse of judicial and executive powers in the State.
In the statement endorsed by Dede Uzor A, Uzor, Executive Director of HURIDE and Chairman of CD in South East Zone, they also called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) to rise to the occasion to stem the tide of judicial recklessness and abuse by Justice Obot.
They said the NBA both in Akwa Ibom and at the national level cannot keep and look the other way when a lawyer is being unjustly mistreated by a Judge who is bent on doing her master’s bidding.
Effiong who was a defence lawyer for one Leo Ekpeyong in a libel suit filed by Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom was sentenced to one month for alleged contempt of court.
He spent two weeks in Ikot Ekpene Correctional Centre before it was directed that he should be moved to Uyo Correctional Centre.
This transfer for a sentence that will last only one month has raised dust and has been a source of worry to many concerned persons.
Hence the call by CD and HURIDE on NJC and NBA to discipline the power-drunk Justice Obot. Dede Uzor warned
