A Senior Advocate of Nigeria and constitutional law expert, Prof. Sebastine Hon, has blasted the conduct of Naval Officer A.M. Yerima in his confrontation with the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike. He recently described the officer’s actions as a breach of the law, and fans have been reacting.
Reacting to the incident via his Facebook page, Sebastine slammed the officer’s decision to obstruct Wike’s access to a disputed plot of land in Abuja, stating that the act cannot be justified under any lawful military order.
According to him, even the Supreme Court of Nigeria recognizes that the duty of a junior officer to obey the orders of his superiors has its own limitations.
He disclosed that absolute obedience is only necessary in military and paramilitary circles.
“Brushing sentiments aside, I hereby condemn in totality the actions of the Naval Officer, A.M. Yerima, who obstructed the FCT Minister from gaining access into that parcel of land, under the guise of ‘obeying superior orders.’
The duty of a junior officer to obey the orders of his superiors, even though strongly upheld in military and paramilitary circles, has its own limitations recognised by no other authority but the Supreme Court of Nigeria,” he wrote.
Citing Supreme Court rulings in Onunze v. State (2023) 8 NWLR (Pt. 1885) 61 and Nigeria Air Force v. James (2002) 18 NWLR (Pt. 798) 295, Sebastine established that military officers are not bound to obey illegal or manifestly unjust orders.
He concluded by saying that no service law of the military allows a serving army officer to mount guard at the private construction site of his boss.
“The illegality in that order stems primarily from the fact that no service law of the military permits a serving military officer to mount guard at the private construction site of his boss, especially under suspicious circumstances like this.
If security concerns existed, the retired Naval Officer ought, under the circumstances, to have engaged the civil police.
By Section 302 of the same Constitution, read together with other extant Acts of the National Assembly, the President of Nigeria has delegated all powers with respect to land administration in the FCT Abuja to the minister.
Going by constitutional and administrative law, therefore, Mr Wike stood in loco of the President of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Nigerian Armed Forces on that fateful day.
Consequently, even if the superior officer were still in service, he would not disobey Mr Wike or obstruct him from entering the land. This was an affront to the civil authority of Mr President.
Rather, it is the officer who obstructed him that has breached not just the Nigerian Constitution, but also service and extant regulatory laws.
For the avoidance of any doubt, Section 114 of the Armed Forces Act makes military personnel criminally liable for civil offences.
This means the officer in question could be arraigned before a Court Martial for obstructing a public officer from performing his public duties, et cetera.
If such intolerable conduct by the young officer is not punished or is celebrated, this may unleash a reign of terror by the men in khaki against hapless civilians — with a grin or boast that ‘we did it to Wike and nothing happened,’” he added.
