The League of Anambra Professionals (LAP) have called on the Federal Government to investigate the viral video of condemned the video of former Anambra State Governor Chief Willie Obiano in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) reports ITREALMS.
LAP in a press statement available to ITREALMS and endorsed by its president Chijioke Okoli, SAN (Orji Nnewi) said that its a common knowledge that visitors do not carry their mobile devices into EFCC facilities and fingered the staff who are being used to humiliate the former governor.
According to him, the sensibilities of most right-thinking Nigerians were assaulted by a distasteful video which started circulating at weekend over the social media of an understandably very sober Chief Willie Obiano, the former Anambra State Governor, under EFCC detention striped to his shorts or boxer pants and gulping water from a plastic bottle.
"It is common knowledge that visitors to EFCC offices-suspects, their lawyers and other members of the public-are never allowed inside with their phones and other electronic devices," he said.
LAP alleged that the offensive video must therefore have been recorded by a staff of EFCC, otherwise the leadership of the Commission should explain how an outsider got round to taking the video shot.
He also said that from news of his arrest at the international airport on his way out of Nigeria and other matters in the public domain, Chief Obiano is undoubtedly a suspect and likely to be subjected to the enigmatic Nigerian criminal justice system.
"Nonetheless, he remains innocent until proven guilty in a court of law; and not on the basis of media trials and salacious social media and WhatsApp chat group gossips," he decried.
Furthermore, LAP noted that the Nigerian Constitution guarantees every citizen, including Chief Obiano, the right to dignity of the human person and which leakage of the video clearly derogates from. In addition to upholding the highest standards of professionalism in all fields as an article of faith, a cardinal objective of LAP is the enthronement of good governance and the rule of law in Anambra State and Nigeria in general.
LAP, he said, is therefore not by any means holding brief for Chief Obiano or canvassing that his tenure is immune from rigorous socio-political and legal scrutiny, with appropriate sanctions visited on persons found to have defaulted to levels below the legal minimum standards.
Insisting however, "these on one hand and respect for Chief Obiano’s rights, the overall demands of fairness and justice as well as the sensibilities of right minded persons by the EFCC are not mutually exclusive."
It is against this backdrop, LAP president said they are demanding from the leadership of EFCC an explanation to Nigerians for leakage of the video to the public and its readiness to visit sanctions on the culprits. Just as EFCC stands condemned for trivialization of the matter.
Remmy Nweke/DoP
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