The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on Friday, February 5, 2016 arrested a top Nigerian lawyer and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Ricky Tarfa for performing his constitutional duties by defending his client, Granhoue Sourou Nazaire.
Tarfa acting on the orders of his client, sought a court order preventing Nazaire’s arrest by the anti-graft agency. EFCC agents had reportedly laid an ambush for Nazaire in a Lagos Court in order to take him by surprise. But Tarfa got wind of the plot and tried to get a judge to issue an order barring the EFCC from arresting his client.
Sahara Reporters says that Tarfa has been in EFCC detention since he was arrested by irate agents of the commission.
Nazaire is a businessman from the Republic of Benin.
This action against a lawyer is one more in a long string of despotic actions by security agencies under President Muhammadu Buhari. There has been a consistent attempt to intimidate the judiciary and lawyers under Buhari who has declared that he only obeys court orders when they are in line with his personal beliefs. He had called on lawyers not to defend clients with corruption cases at the conference of the Nigerian Bar Association held in 2015.
This week, the national chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) chairman, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun called for a probe of the Supreme Court justices following their rulings on election petitions this week. The decisions were in favour of the main opposition party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Rivers, Akwa Ibom, Delta, Abia, and Taraba. The apex court ruled in favour of the APC in Lagos, Oyo, and Ogun States as well.
