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ATTACHED LETTER:
 
 
October 12, 2009
 
 
Dear President Yar'Adua:
 
 
Our attention has been drawn to incontrovertible evidence that the Federal Government - as initiated by its National Intellegence Agency and perfected by the Foreign Ministry - has instructed its missions abroad not to renew the passports of certain named citizens of Nigeria, namely Messrs Nuhu Ribadu (former EFCC Chairman),  and Nasiru El-Rufai  (former Minister of Federal Capital Territory) or grant any consular services to them.

The decision is a tragic reminder of the dark days of brutal military dictatorship when the confiscation of the passports of political opponents, human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners was the order of the day.  We are aware of only one occasion when the military government of Abacha frowned at the completed renewal of former Foreign Minister (and then NADECO chieftain) Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi's passport in Washington DC when an embassy official lost his posting and almost his job  - but that was after the fact.  Thus, to our knowledge,  none of the military dictators ever directed Nigerian missions not to renew passports of their opponents BEFORE the fact.
 

As also pointed out recently by Barrister Femi Falana, we wish to draw the Federal Government's attention to the case of Director, SSS v. Olisa Agbakoba (1999) 6 NWLR (PT 595) 314 where the Supreme Court held inter alia:

“It is not in dispute that the Constitution gives to the Nigerian citizen the right to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof. It also guarantees to the citizen the right not to be expelled from Nigeria nor be refused entry thereto or exit therefrom. Section 38(1) of the Constitution provides:
 
‘38(1).    Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigerian and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereto or exit therefrom’
 
It is matter of common knowledge that for a Nigeria to travel out of Nigeria to another country he must first hold or possess a valid passport issued by the Government of Nigeria. See: Section 4(1) of the Immigration Act, Cap 171 LFN 1990 and the definition of the word ‘passport’ in Section 51 thereof. Without this document, he cannot leave Nigeria or be admitted to another country. It follows, therefore, that without a passport a citizen of Nigeria cannot exercise the right guaranteed him by the Constitution, of egress from Nigeria. Can it, then, be said that the right to hold a passport is not one guaranteed by the Constitution? That is a question that calls for determination in this appeal.  
 
If the view is correct - and I subscribe to it – that possession of a passport makes exit out of Nigeria possible, it follows that without it a citizen of Nigeria cannot enjoy the right of egress from Nigeria given him by section 38(1) of the Constitution. In my respectful view, therefore, to hold or possess a passport is ancillary to the right of egress from Nigeria given in Section 38(1). It is, as rightly held by the Court below, per Ayoola JCA (as he then was), concomitant to the right of egress from Nigeria. It is a concomitant right without which the right of egress from Nigeria becomes hollow or empty”.
 
 

In the light of the foregoing, the decision of the Federal Government to effectively,  gratuitously and vindictively strip any Nigerians of  citizenship by denying them of their constitutional right to hold Nigerian passports without due process it is in clear violation of the provision of Section 38 of the Nigerian Constitution and Article 12 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
 
We shudder at the thought that those of us in the Diaspora who criticize the government of the day for any reason may suddenly become passport-less and hence be unable either to carry out our jobs that require international travel, visit our families back at home, or worse still be subject to deportation by our host governments.  We shudder at the thought of our Nigerian compatriots inside the country who can become shut in and hence cannot travel to visit their families abroad or carry out official or professional duties simply because their passports have been pre-emptively seized due to non-renewal.

Having regard to the fact that President Yar’adua is the current Chair of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) the denial of passports and/or their renewal is a clear violation of Article 3 of the ECOWAS Protocol on Community Citizens which has been ratified by Nigeria.

Under the circumstances, we urge the Federal Government to reverse the illegal and unconstitutional directive without any further delay, otherwise the decision will be challenged  as a class-action suit.  We also urge you to remind all government officials to be mindful not to issue or carry out unconstitutional and hence illegal orders under the guise of "orders from above/highest quarters."  God does not commit atrocities, and the officials should be made aware that "The Devil made me do it" is no defence in law.

We urgently await your favorable response.

October 13, 2009 

Dear All:

As you are already aware, a signature drive has been going on for two days now urging Nigerian citizens and friends particularly in the Diaspora to express displeasure at an official directive from Abuja that prevents the renewal of the passports of and consular services to certain citizens of Nigeria.  We asked that you send in your name, city and country of residence  by Wednesday midnight October 14, 2009, unless President Yar'Adua had reversed himself before then.  

Names of the signatories so far will be found at the end of the updated petition below. 

However, latest information provided by Mr. Omoyele Sowore dba SaharaReporters shows that the Nigerian Government is already having some change of heart on the matter to beat our deadline.  You can read the latest development yourself on: 

  http://saharareporters.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3960:2009-10-14-01-09-01&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=18

About Face: Yar'Adua repudiates NIA memo on El Rufai and Ribadu, fires DG Imohe for memo 

Up until this moment, however, 

(1) we have not seen any official documents concerning the repudiation of the NIA official, 

(2) we have not seen any official document by the Foreign Ministry reversing the earlier order 

(3) if true, would not understand the differential treatment of NIA and Foreign Ministry officials on the matter (after all, the Foreign Ministry gave the final order) and 

(4) we have not been informed that the passports of both El Rufai and Ribadu have been actually renewed, or that they have been informed that they can proceed to have the passports renewed with immediate effect.

Consequently, we hereby press on with the petition, and urge that those who still wish to sign the petition can continue to do so until 12 midnight Wednesday, and those who might wish to correct/add information to their names given below can still do so.  If it becomes necessary, we will revise the letter to commend those in the administration that made cooler heads to prevail.

We thank you for your patience and cooperation.

Bolaji Aluko

October 12, 2009

Dear President Yar'Adua:

Our attention has been drawn to incontrovertible evidence that the Federal Government - as initiated by its National Intellegence Agency and perfected by the Foreign Ministry - has instructed its missions abroad not to renew the passports of certain named citizens of Nigeria, namely Messrs Nuhu Ribadu and Nasiru El-Rufai,  or grant any consular services to them. 

The decision is a tragic reminder of the dark days of brutal military dictatorship when the confiscation of the passports of political opponents, human rights activists and pro-democracy campaigners was the order of the day.  We are aware of only one occasion when the military government of Abacha frowned at the completed renewal of former Foreign Minister Prof. Bolaji Akinyemi's passport in Washington DC when an embassy official lost his posting and almost his job  - but that was after the fact.  Thus, to our knowledge,  none of the military dictators ever directed Nigerian missions not to renew passports of their opponents BEFORE the fact.

As also pointed out recently by Barrister Femi Falana, we wish to draw the Federal Government's attention to the case of Director, SSS v. Olisa Agbakoba (1999) 6 NWLR (PT 595) 314 where the Supreme Court held inter alia:

“It is not in dispute that the Constitution gives to the Nigerian citizen the right to move freely throughout Nigeria and to reside in any part thereof. It also guarantees to the citizen the right not to be expelled from Nigeria nor be refused entry thereto or exit therefrom. Section 38(1) of the Constitution provides:

‘38(1).  Every citizen of Nigeria is entitled to move freely throughout Nigerian and to reside in any part thereof, and no citizen of Nigeria shall be expelled from Nigeria or refused entry thereto or exit therefrom’

It is matter of common knowledge that for a Nigeria to travel out of Nigeria to another country he must first hold or possess a valid passport issued by the Government of Nigeria. See: Section 4(1) of the Immigration Act, Cap 171 LFN 1990 and the definition of the word ‘passport’ in Section 51 thereof. Without this document, he cannot leave Nigeria or be admitted to another country. It follows, therefore, that without a passport a citizen of Nigeria cannot exercise the right guaranteed him by the Constitution, of egress from Nigeria. Can it, then, be said that the right to hold a passport is not one guaranteed by the Constitution? That is a question that calls for determination in this appeal.  

If the view is correct - and I subscribe to it – that possession of a passport makes exit out of Nigeria possible, it follows that without it a citizen of Nigeria cannot enjoy the right of egress from Nigeria given him by section 38(1) of the Constitution. In my respectful view, therefore, to hold or possess a passport is ancillary to the right of egress from Nigeria given in Section 38(1). It is, as rightly held by the Court below, per Ayoola JCA (as he then was), concomitant to the right of egress from Nigeria. It is a concomitant right without which the right of egress from Nigeria becomes hollow or empty”. 

In the light of the foregoing, the decision of the Federal Government to effectively gratuitously and vindictively strip any Nigerians of  citizenship by denying them of their constitutional right to hold Nigerian passports without due process it is in clear violation of the provision of Section 38 of the Nigerian Constitution and Article 12 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.

We shudder at the thought that those of us in the Diaspora who criticize the government of the day for any reason may suddenly become passport-less and hence be unable either to carry out our jobs that require international travel, visit our families back at home, or worse still be subject to deportation by our host governments.  We shudder at the thought of our Nigerian compatriots inside the country who can become shut in and hence cannot travel to visit their families abroad or carry out official or professional duties simply because their passports have been pre-emptively seized due to non-renewal.

Having regard to the fact that President Yar’adua is the current Chair of the Authority of Heads of State and Government of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) the denial of passports and/or their renewal is a clear violation of Article 3 of the ECOWAS Protocol on Community Citizens which has been ratified by Nigeria. 

Under the circumstances, we urge the Federal Government to reverse the illegal and unconstitutional directive without any further delay, otherwise the decision will be challenged  as a class-action suit.  We also urge you to remind government officials to be mindful not to carry out unconstitutional and hence illegal orders under the guise of "orders from above/highest quarters."  God does not commit atrocities, and they should be made aware that "The Devil made me do it" is no defence in law.

We urgently await your favorable response.

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Please sign by simply sending your name, city and country of residence to alukome@gmail.com 

Mobolaji E. Aluko, PhD,  Burtonsville, MD, USA

Robot  # 1 | 13.10.2009 01:38

...Read the full article.

MrOneNaija  # 2 | 13.10.2009 10:22

A PETITION TO COMPEL APOSTLES OF IMPUNITY AND ELECTION RIGGING TO SUBMIT THEMSELVES FOR TRIAL Routinely, successive Nigerian regimes and their agents have abridged with impunity the basic rights of the citizenry. Under the hedonistic dictatorship of the ex-tyrant called Obasanjo which ended on May 29, 2007, the former despot and his henchmen in the likes of Nasir el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu took sadistic pleasure in inflicting untold suffering and atrocities on the populace. Well documented, the reign of terror of these Cro-Magnon men did reach its nadir with the brazen rigging into power of Ali Baba Aremu Obasanjo's hand-picked protégé, Umoru. Today, we are all living witnesses to the negative ramifications of the criminal impunity of Igbochukwu Obasanjo and his confederates. So, the logical question: Is it not proper and right that citizens begin by calling for a petition to compel election riggers and agents of impunity in the Obasanjo, Ribadu, el-Rufai mould to submit themselves for trial? It is the contention of many that a holistic approach to the reign of impunity in the land is a much better approach than what risks being considered as a selective pleading for the rule of law. P. S. Due to its relevance here, I repost my earlier comment on el-Rufai's offensive rants regarding his partisan squabbles with his PDP buddies. EL-RUFAI'S WORRISOME POSTURING There is everything worrisome to the deeply grotesque rants of the dimunitive erstwhile FCT minister who goes by the name of Nasir el-Rufai. The vulgarly sanctimonious diatribe by one of Nigeria's apostles of criminal impunity under the ruinous kleptocracy of the ex-tyrant known as Obasanjo should be dismissed for what it is, namely, an attention-seeking ploy on the part of an unrepentant agent whose active collaboration with the forces of decadence and dictatorship (of which he continues to be an integral part) has inflicted so much suffering and destruction on the Nigerian nation and its peoples. It is indeed curious that the boisterous el-Rufai seems ignorant of the fact that his is a self-indicting account when he states that he did actively contribute with other Obasanjo thugs in the likes of Nuhu Ribadu to deny Nigerians their sovereign right to elect their own president in 2007. This errand boy of reaction and duplicity even has the guts to infer that the Almighty God used his master and soul-mate, the symbol of perfidy and rascality called Obasanjo, to impose Yar'Adua on the country. This is heresy at its most ignominous. What this says eloquently is that their curious posturing notwithstanding, el-Rufai and his buddy, Nuhu Ribadu, have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing since their days as the enfants terribles of the ancien régime. These adjuncts of a reckless and scatological despot do indeed hurt our sensibilities when, instead of showing remorse or engaging in genuine soul-searching, they have elected to pursue a barely disguised internecine war of attrition against their former allies within the PDP. We are not amused by el-Rufai's (and Ribadu's) lust for political relevance which is now being immorally packaged as some kind of a principled struggle against putative undemocratic forces now holding sway in Abuja. For a change, el-Rufai should seriously consider going back to Nigeria in order to render accounts to the EFCC (and, perhaps, other establishments) regarding his reported misdeeds as FCT minister. He should also respond, intelligently, this time around, to the fact that as director-general of the BPE, he must be held criminally responsible for taking irresponsible and unpatriotic decisions that cost Nigerians hundreds of millions of dollars like in the Pentascope scandal. And, by the way, he doesn't require a renewed passport to do any of the above. Above all, his shouting hoarse in the media is looking more and more like a convenient façade - the ultimate alibi of a fugitive from the law. P. S. Readers (including el-Rufai) are requested to read the article entitled "El-Rufai and The Pentascope Scandal" (by Aonduna Tondu, that is, my humble self). The document can be accessed in the authors section of NVS. Happy reading! http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/...candal-12.html

Big-K  # 3 | 13.10.2009 10:27

Hi Prof Aluko, Good initiative. Sign me up. Folks, Its not about Rufai or Ribadu. Its about our fundamental rights as citizens.

denker  # 4 | 13.10.2009 10:32

thank u up there, MrOneNaija, dis initiative is one am not gonna partake in.... ..dat chap gotta do wat is right: suicide!

MrOneNaija  # 5 | 13.10.2009 12:23

CONSIDER THIS =Big-K;395612>Hi Prof Aluko, Good initiative. Sign me up. Folks, Its not about Rufai or Ribadu. Its about our fundamental rights as citizens. "Not about Rufai or Ribadu" ? Well, consider this: Some folks would very well find it curious that Prof. Aluko and the established pro-democracy/human rights groups have not considered it noteworthy to initiate a petition against the continued detention of the notorious Major Al Mustapha, the late Abacha's thug. While Mustapha is denied his liberty, the thugs of the Obasanjo era in the likes of el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu who, by the way, did arguably inflict more damage on the Nigerian polity than Major Mustapha, are roaming free.

Big-K  # 6 | 13.10.2009 12:28

=MrOneNaija;395634>CONSIDER THIS "Not about Rufai or Ribadu" ? Well, consider this: Some folks would very well find it curious that Prof. Aluko and the established pro-democracy/human rights groups have not considered it noteworthy to initiate a petition against the continued detention of the notorious Major Al Mustapha, the late Abacha's thug. While Mustapha is denied his liberty, the thugs of the Obasanjo era in the likes of el-Rufai and Nuhu Ribadu who, by the way, did arguably inflict more damage on the Nigerian polity than Major Mustapha, are roaming free. Mr OneNaija, Every Nigerian should be entitled to a Passport - be he Al-Mustapha, Big-K, MrOnenaija, Ribadu, El-Rufai - thats the simple point.

denker  # 7 | 13.10.2009 12:50

=Big-K;395637>Mr OneNaija, Every Nigerian should be entitled to a Passport - be he Al-Mustapha, Big-K, MrOnenaija, Ribadu, El-Rufai - thats the simple point. Big-K,...absolutely nonsense...of course each is entitled to password, but not when u have a case to answer at home..let dem go home...for once a man must do wat men do....?stop being big crying babies!

MrOneNaija  # 8 | 13.10.2009 13:02

=Big-K;395637>Mr OneNaija, Every Nigerian should be entitled to a Passport - be he Al-Mustapha, Big-K, MrOnenaija, Ribadu, El-Rufai - thats the simple point. Your point is very well noted, Big K. Mine is that the individual liberties accorded every citizen are apparently being systematically denied the likes of Al Mustapha due to lugubrious considerations of a non-legal nature. Surely, the pretended apostles of neo-liberalism like el-Rufai should understand that true ethos of liberalism do abhor a regime of impunity whereby the state is seen as routinely posing gestures that it cannot constitutionally or rationally justify. I suggest that el-Rufai, his pal, Ribadu and their foot-soldiers here and beyond do a careful reading of the writings by an individual I consider as one of the most brilliant ideologues of liberalism as a doctrine, that is, Bruce Ackerman.

Ikpemalueziokwu  # 9 | 13.10.2009 13:32

Big K, Not every Nigerian is entitled to a passport....:DWhat of madmen, kidnappers, prisoners both within Kirikiri and outside etc etc. That document is the property of the Federal Republic Nigeria and the sovereign has every right to give it, deny it, withdraw it, refuse to renew it or cancel it wrt any Nigerian.:D Regarding the two musketeers who have become nascent born-again rule-of-law observers, let us hold it until the jury returns:yawn:

DaBishop  # 10 | 13.10.2009 13:47

=Ikpemalueziokwu;395663>Big K, Not every Nigerian is entitled to a passport....:DWhat of madmen, kidnappers, prisoners both within Kirikiri and outside etc etc. That document is the property of the Federal Republic Nigeria and the sovereign has every right to give it, deny it, withdraw it, refuse to renew it or cancel it wrt any Nigerian.:D Regarding the two musketeers who have become nascent born-again rule-of-law observers, let us hold it until the jury returns:yawn: While the passport may be the property of Nigeria, it is not the property of the 'current government of imbeciles' se you get? If they must be denied, it must be for cause under the rule of law. BTW, I signed THE PETITION for me and ma family and ma successors in title. HA!

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