The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has slammed operatives of the Department of State, DSS, over their invasion of the Lagos state House of Assembly on Monday, describing it as a threat to democracy.

In a statement issued by the Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko,  its National Coordinator, it says such action violates the fundamental principle of democracy, as it urged caution on the part of the security agency in order not to truncate Nigeria’s democracy.

“We in the civil rights advocacy group: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) have read with considerable shock and dismay, the reported invasion by armed officers of the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police Force to the complex of the Lagos State legislature just as we are urging for the exercise of the highest sense of caution and decorum on the part of the security agencies that are directly controlled by the federal government and are under the direct command and control of the President and the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Nigeria who at the moment is President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

“Our intervention is informed by the urgency of the now, to remind the Department of State Services and the Nigeria Police, that as agencies created by law, they are bound by the provisions of the Nigerian constitution and in the case under discussion which is the reported invasion of the legislative Assembly of Lagos State, we are convinced that the action is an egregious violation of the constitutional provisions encapsulating the ingredients of checks and balances and the principles of the separation of powers domiciled in sections 4, 5 and 6 of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. We humbly remind the DSS, the Police and Mr. President, who has the final say on the operations of the executive controlled security agencies, that constitutionally, the principle of separation of powers is such a tested, trusted and visibly hallowed constitutional principle of the democratic government of Nigeria for the three arms of government to stay in their assigned functions, exercise their guaranteed lawful powers just so each of these three arms would lawfully avoid arbitrary excesses and impunity. The ideal underlying the principle of separation  of power, is that the legislature makes the law; the executive executes the law, while the judiciary interprets the law.

We in HURIWA, are therefore miffed by the action of the DSS and Police and we recall that this Lagos incident today is reminiscent of the lawless display of brazen disregard to the constitution that characterised a similar action of invasion of the National Assembly complex in Abuja, by the DSS during the immediate past disgraceful administration of Muhammadu Buhari. We are happy that some brave members of the National Assembly including some women legislators, stood their ground in the defence of the principle of separation of power that was about to be whittled down by the immediate past administration of Muhammadu Buhari.

“We, the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) have yet to find any cogent, verifiable and justifiable reasons for this brazen attack of the heart of democracy in Lagos State as represented by the reported invasion of the Lagos State House of Assembly complex and we are calling on President Tinubu to call the heads of the DSS and the NPF to order and direct the immediate end of this siege, which remains a lawless infraction against constitutional democracy.  We call on the Nigerian president to order the DSS and the Police to withdraw from the premises of the Lagos State House of Assembly if their presence is solely to impede the administration of legislative duties by the duly elected and inaugurated law makers of  Lagos State. If there are litigation challenging the leadership of the Lagos State House of Assembly,  the DSS and the Nigeria Police Force can’t constitute themselves into a court of law. Let the law take its full course and if any of the contending parties is in court, the court must be left to do her duty without executive intimidation by the DSS and the NPF. Our democracy must never be truncated.”