long-established postulation that disobedience of Court Orders (otherwise called contempt of Court) is an abomination of the rankest specie just as it is an anathema in every democracy worth the name as it holds the key to the floodgates of anarchy and societal destruction. Condemning this cancerous vice, our own Supreme Court, in the case of Hart v. Hart (1991) 21 N.S.C.C. (Pt. 1) 184 at 199, had these unkind words for those who disobey Court orders (contemnors);
“I would like to state that obedience to Orders of Courts is fundamental to the good order, peace and stability of the Nigerian nation. The ugly alternative is a painful recrudescence of triumph of brute force or anarchy, a resort to our old system of settlement by means of bow and arrows, machetes and guns or, now, even more sophisticated weapons of war. Disobedience to an order of Court should, therefore, be seen as an offence directed not against the personality of the Judge who made the Order, but as a calculated act of subversion of peace, law, and order in Nigeria society. Obedience to every Order of Court is therefore a duty which every citizen who believes in peace and stability of the Nigerian State owes to the nation.
To allow Court orders to be disobeyed would be to tread the road toward anarchy. If orders of the Court can be treated with disrespect, the whole administration of justice is brought into scorn…If the remedies that the Court grants to correct wrongs can be ignored, then, there will be nothing left for each person but to take the law into his own hands. Loss of respect for the Court will quickly result in the destruction of our society.”
How time flies! The same impunity and disobedience of Court Order levied against our president last year is what Mazi Nnamdi Kanu is gleefully practicing today. If Mazi Nnamdi Kanu had obeyed the Ruling of the Court anchoring his bail to many conditions [most of which he has violated even though he earlier agreed to them], the Ekwulobia tragedy would not have occurred.
It was in the process of disobeying the Court Order [banning him from organizing and/or attending rallies] that Ekwulobia tragedy eventuated. Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, his IPOB and the whole world can now see where the culpability of Ekwulobia tragedy lies. Unlike Mazi Nnamdi Kanu and his IPOB that offered no word(s) of sympathy, encouragement and condolence to the deceased and victims of the 6th August gruesome, mind-boggling and ghoulish butchery at Ozubulu, we [on our part] humbly pray the Good Lord to show mercy to the victim(s) of Ekwulobia tragedy, graciously lift the light of His countenance upon the departed and grant the dead a kind admittance into his kingdom.
Ozoemezina!.
18th August, 2017.
Johnmary Chukwukasi Jideobi, Esq.
Convener, Anambra State Lawyers in Defence of Democracy [ASLADD].
