‘Travel ban is barbaric’ — Lawyers challenge Buhari’s order on seized assets

Ikenga Ugochinyere and Keneth Udeze, both lawyers, have filed an appeal against the judgement upholding President Muhammadu Buhari’s executive order 6.

On July 5, Buhari had signed the executive order to restrain owners of assets under probe from carrying out further transactions on such properties.

He explained that he signed the order to stop owners of the assets from using their proceeds to pervert justice.

But Ugochinyere and Udeze filed a suit against the president on the order and lost in court. Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), was a defendant in the suit.

On Monday, they appealed against the ruling of the court.

Speaking with journalists after filing the appeal at the court in Abuja, Ugochinyere said the order violates the doctrine of separation of powers and all tenets of democracy.

The lawyer said the court misinterpreted section 5 of the constitution upon which the president derived power to make the executive order.

“The trial judge erred in law when she unilaterally varied and modified the express terms of executive order 6 by issuing judicial caution, that the powers of the attorney-general must be exercised in accordance with the provisions of the constitution, instead of nullifying the executive order 6,” he said.

“President Muhammadu Buhari’s executive order 6 and his midnight denial of some citizens of their fundamental right of movement with his banning of 50 Nigerians without the order of a competent court is obnoxious, babaric, capricious, arbitrary and the greatest assaults to the scared institutions of constitutional governance.

“It seeks to strike terror and rain fear in the minds of Nigerians. That the banning of citizens from travelling abroad and the attempt to give effect to executive order no 6 without first seeking the order of the court is a misinterpretation of the judgement of the federal high court on executive order 6.”