- Pandemonium broke out after masked and gun-toting DSS officials blocked warders from the federal penitentiary from taking the embattled CBN chief to prison
- In the ensuing scuffle, the uniform of one the warders was torn
The atmosphere around the federal high court in Ikoyi, Lagos state, is charged and steeped in apprehension.
The situation is engendered by the face-off between the Department of State Services and the Nigerian prison officials during the arraignment of suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Godwin Emefiele on Tuesday.
Recall that The Federal High Court in Lagos State on Tuesday granted bail to Emefiele in the amount of N20 million with one surety in the same amount.
He was granted bail after entering a not guilty plea on the two counts relating to the alleged illegal possession of firearms and ammunition.
The court had also ordered that Emefiele be detained in Ikoyi federal prison pending the fulfillment of his bail condition.
However, pandemonium broke out after masked and gun-toting DSS officials blocked warders from the federal penitentiary from taking the embattled CBN chief to prison.
In the ensuing scuffle, an official of the prison authority was manhandled and assaulted by the DSS. Journalists and bystanders had to scamper for safety as the situation became tensed.
Okanta Emefiele, the immediate brother of the CBN governor, expressed shock at the action of the DSS, saying it was a desecration of the judiciary.
He wondered why the DSS would block the prison officials, who were acting on court orders, from taking his brother and insisting that they must take him to their own facility.
A lawyer, Maxwell Okpara, also decried the action of the secret police, saying such a behaviour was anathema to the tenets of democracy.
He disclosed that the DSS operatives said they were acting on orders from above. Okpara noted that executive fiats or orders could not trump court order.
Emefiele lawyer also raised the alarm that the DSS planned to re-arrest their client despite the bail granted him by a Federal High Court.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Joseph Daudu, disclosed this shortly after the court sitting in Lagos.
As of the time of filing this report, the suspended CBN governor is still holed up inside the courtroom with his lawyers.
VIDEO: DSS goes physical with NCS personnel over Emefiele’s custody pic.twitter.com/7cZaedqZlj
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