A group, ‘Society Watch’ has said in Abuja that the altercation involving the Code of Conduct Tribunal (CCT) Chairman, Danladi Umar and a private security guard at the Banex area in Wuse 2, Abuja might be as a result of frustration arising from societal disappointments.
Convener of the group, Chief Desmond Ebireri who was coincidentally at the scene of the incident in a statement in Abuja, Thursday, explained that Justice Umar least expected the mob action arising from the altercation that eventually led to an assault on him.
Ebireri said, he was shocked at the reactions trailing the fracas in the media which suggested the CCT Chairman was guilty with some commentators trying to take him to ‘golgotha.’
The statement noted that the group would have been silent, but for naked lies and falsehood being pushed into the cyberspace and on some national media platforms, it became a moral burden to release a statement detailing what happened to the ‘vilified Danladi’, as if being a Chief Judge in the temple of Justice or holding any public office in Nigeria was synonymous with being an enemy of the commoners.
Part of the statement which was signed and released to newsmen noted:
“It’s appalling, the rate at which some elements and the highly privileged persons passed comment of bias against an issue they know nothing or little about.
“I was close to the contentious car lot where the CCT Chairman, whom I got to know in the course of the misunderstanding. So, I am a living witness to how rude the guard became when Danladi Umar was not convinced not to pack on the lot.
“What started as a misunderstanding snowballed into a mob action due to the guards shouting march which lacks courtesy.
“This is without prejudice to what the outcome will be and without holding brief for anyone, Justice Umar, and like any other elderly persons, he is old enough to be respected, not to talk of pouncing on him which he sustained a deep cut on one of his fingers.
“Obviously, it took the Policemen who rescued and whisked himaway from the mob, otherwise the casualty would have been better imagined than said which could be witnessed in the smashing of his car.”
Society Watch further lamented the ethnic dimension to the imbroglio by some ethnic irredentists, wondering how those who held public offices in the past and who should be elderstatesmen were those stoking embers of discord instead mending fences.
“Danladi Umar breaks no law for going to a public place without Police orderlies as a highly privileged person. For sure, its one reason that the Security guard undermined him, before the mob finished what he started.
“For a man of Umar’s standing to visit a public place like Banex Plaza and areas that are hustlers-dominated, without his Police attachees speaks of humility, though very risky as times have changed.
“We know that because of his position, he might have not being disposed to explaining the incident, but it is important to draw attention of those who want to use the incident to be become ‘celebrated critics, to how the gate was locked to prevent him from exiting, thus made it possible for attackers to further broke the back screen of his car.
