In a democracy, it is unacceptable to threaten judges, and Law Enforcement Agencies must act. - Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi - video Dailymotion

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00:00 The second point I would like to make is,

00:03 yesterday, somebody threatened the judge

00:09 who is going to sit on the case.

00:12 And federal authorities arrested that person

00:19 that this is against the law,

00:26 that this is a crime threatening a judge,

00:30 that this is against the law and arrested.

00:36 They just didn't issue a statement

00:39 that this is against the law.

00:40 And I want Nigerians to keep this in mind

00:44 because we are getting close to the red line

00:50 of intimidating judges over cases

00:55 that are before them, political cases, election cases.

01:00 Now, when one says this, people think,

01:06 oh, he's talking about the presidential tribunals.

01:11 No, remember a judge in Nigeria,

01:17 sitting in Kano said,

01:24 her senior SAN had tried to bribe her

01:28 because she's sitting over an electoral case.

01:36 Now, what is the Ministry of Justice there for?

01:41 What is the police there for?

01:44 What is the DSS there for?

01:47 Surely the people who are intimidating,

01:52 who are threatening judges, they are known.

01:57 They are not ghosts.

01:59 They are not spirits.

02:01 It is a danger to our safety, to our stability

02:06 when you expose the judiciary,

02:13 whether at the federal level or at the state level

02:17 to intimidation and you do nothing

02:21 except to simply say, this is against the law, go after them.

02:26 Even democracy does not allow you

02:31 to intimidate a judge, to threaten his family,

02:36 to threaten the judges, to threaten their daughters.

02:44 Democracy does not allow you to do that.

02:46 You've crossed the red line.

02:48 And I thought I should bring to your attention

02:52 what's happened in the United States

02:54 where we are copying that they are not allowing

02:58 that red line to be crossed

03:00 without doing something about it.

03:02 Don't let us say that we are going to be more Catholic

03:06 than the Pope, or we don't want to be accused of this.

03:10 And we don't want to be accused of that.

03:11 Therefore we will leave them alone.

03:14 You leave them alone until they burn down the house.

03:18 No, no, no, that's not Russian.

In a democracy, it is unacceptable to threaten judges, and Law Enforcement Agencies must act. - Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi

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