Femi Falana Calls For The Disbandment Of FirstLady's Panel On Chibok Missing Girls.

“But the First Lady has no power whatsoever to institute a panel to investigate any matter in any part of Nigeria.”

According to Premium Times, A human rights lawyer, Femi Falana, has called for the disbandment of a panel of inquiry into the missing school girls in Chibok, describing it as illegal and unconstitutional.

In a statement, Thursday, Mr. Falana said that Patience Jonathan, the First Lady, has “no .power whatsoever to institute a panel to investigate any matter in any part of Nigeria.”

Last Saturday, President Goodluck Jonathan announced the setting up of a 26-member Committee to probe the abduction of over 200 female students of the Government College, Chibok, Borno State.

The next day, Mrs. Jonathan, convened a meeting to set up a separate committee that would include wives of relevant stakeholders, security officials and others to seek the whereabouts of the kidnapped girls.

In his reaction, Mr. Falana, who participated in one of the #BringBackOurGirls protest, said though the committee set up by the president could be explained, that by Mrs. Jonathan is illegal.

“In Fawehinmi v. Babangida (2003) 3 NWLR (PT 808) 604 the Supreme Court held that the power of the President to set up a Commission of Inquiry is limited to the Federal Capital Territory by virtue of the Tribunal of Inquiry Act (CAP T21 ) Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004,” Mr. Falana, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, said.

“Therefore, the Committee set up by the President and inaugurated on Tuesday, May 6, 2014 to probe the abduction of the girls is best a ministerial act.

“But the First Lady has no power whatsoever to institute a panel to investigate any matter in any part of Nigeria. To that extent, the panel of inquiry alleged to have been set up by the First Lady is illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.

“It should be disbanded without any further delay. President Goodluck Jonathan should ensure that the abduction of the innocent girls is not further trivialized in the interest of our collective sensibility and public morality,” Mr. Falana said.

Mr. Falana also condemned claims by some political leaders that no girl had been abducted, despite the inauguration of the Presidential Committee to investigate the abduction and the publication of the names of about 185 of the missing girls by the Christian Association of Nigeria.

“Such level of insensitivity is being displayed by highly placed persons at a time that the Boko Haram leader, Abubakar Shekau has admitted that the criminal sect abducted the innocent girls and threatened that they would be sold into slavery,” said Mr. Falana.

“Are we to believe that the Borno State Government and the Boko Haram sect conspired with the parents of the missing girls to embarrass the Goodluck Jonathan Administration?

“Why has the Federal Government accepted the offer of the United States’ Government to join in the frivolous search for the girls since they are no longer missing? No doubt, the incendiary statements credited to certain people to the effect that ‘no child is missing’ must have accentuated the agony of the parents of the abducted some of whom had taken part in street demonstrations to demand ‘Bring Back Our Girls.’”