A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Friday ordered Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police, Suleiman Abba, to reinstate the withdrawn security aides to Speaker of the House of Representatives, Aminu Tambuwal.
The judgement is coming days after Tambuwal and the lawmakers from the All Progressives Congress (APC) instituted a court case against the Nigerian Police, joining as co-defendants, President Goodluck Jonathan, the National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and others. They demanded that the withdrawal of Tambuwal’s security details be declared by the court as illegal.
Tambuwal and his friends had also asked the court to stop the PDP caucus of the House from any planned impeachment.
Tambuwal’s security details were withdrawn by the Inspector-General of Police, ostensibly on the orders of the president barely 48 hours after he defected from the PDP to the APC and adjourned the House till 3rd December.
Abba had cited portions of the constitution as giving him the powers to withdraw Tambuwal’s security aides, adding that since he had defected, he was no longer recognised as the Speaker of the House.
Nullifying Abba’s action, the court said Abba erred in law by withdrawing the security detail of the Speaker when Tambuwal was still in office as the Speaker and has not resigned or removed from office by impeachment.
The statement by the police had read that: “in view of the recent defection by the right Hon. Aminu Tambuwal CFR the Speaker of the House of Representative of the Federal Republic of Nigeria from the People Democratic Party to the All Progressive Congress and having regard to section 68 (1) g of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as Amended, the Nigerian Police Force has withdrawn the Police personnel attached to his office.”
