Lawyers appeal Executive Order verdict, criticises travel ban

Two Abuja-based lawyers have appealed the judgement by an FCT High Court judge upholding the powers of President Muhammadu Buhari to make Executive Order No 6.

In a Notice of Appeal filed at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Ikenga Ugochinyere and Kenneth Udeze are asking the appellate court to overrule the decision the court the order does not infringe on the fundamental rights of citizens.

They argued that the judge erred in law when she occasioned the miscarriage of justice by unilaterally varying the terms of the Executive Order No 6 by issuing judicial caution that the powers of the Attorney General of the Federation must be exercised in accordance with the provisions of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, which did not arise in the Executive Order No 6 nor raised before it by any of the parties thereto.

They further argued in Ground 3 that the judge erred in law by deliberately refusing to make specific findings of fact on the issue submitted.

Addressing newsmen on the appeal, Ugochinyere stated that the latest travel ban against 50 Nigerians on the basis of the Executive Order No 6 “without the order of a competent court is obnoxious, barbaric, capricious, arbitrary and greatest assault to the sacred institutions of constitutional governance.”

At the trial court, they had sought among others: “A declaration that the act or conduct of the president in issuing the order interfere with, or encroach into the ownership, or otherwise of the assets or properties of any person without such person being found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction, is unconstitutional, null and void.”