Malam Garba Shehu made a clarification in a statement in Abuja on Sunday.

The Presidency has said the on-going
`surgical operation’ against some judicial
officers is specifically targeted at
corruption and not at the judiciary as an
institution.

Malam Garba Shehu, the Senior Special
Assistant on Media and Publicity to President
Muhammadu Buhari, made the clarification in a
statement in Abuja on Sunday.

According to Shehu, the president reserves his
highest respect for the institution of the
judiciary as the third arm of government and will
not do anything to undermine its independence.

Shehu said Buhari remained a committed
democrat, “in words and in his actions, and will
not take any action in violation of the constitution.

“In a robust democracy, such as ours, there is
bound to be a plurality of opinions on any given
issue but there is a convergence of views that the
country has a corruption problem that needs to
be corrected.

“But reports by a section of the media are giving
us cause for concern.’’


The Presidential aide advised that, in
undertaking the task of reporting, the media
should be careful about the fault lines they
opened.
“It is wrong to present this incident as a
confrontation between the executive and judicial
arms of government,’’ he said
Shehu said the Presidency had received
assurances from the Department of State
Services (DSS) that all due processes of the
law, including the possession of search and
arrest warrants, were obtained before the
searches on some judges.

“To suggest that the government is acting outside
the law in a dictatorial manner is to breach the
interest of the state,’’ he said.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that
the arrest of three judges for alleged corruption
has angered some stakeholders in the judiciary,
especially Nigeria Bar Association (NBA).
The NBA has asked the president to order the
release of the judges or face the consequences.