The Presidency has clarified that the recent raid of official quarters of some judges and their arrest by the operatives of the Department of State Security were specifically targeted at corruption, not at the judiciary as an institution.
The Senior Special Assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on Media and Publicity, Mallam Garba Shehu, said this in a statement Sunday night.

The presidential aide described the incident as a surgical operation.

He said the Presidency assured that Buhari reserves his highest respect for the institution of the judiciary as the third arm of government.

According to Shehu, to this end, President Buhari will not do anything to undermine the independence of the judiciary.

He said President Buhari remained a committed democrat in words and in his actions and would not take any action in violation of the constitution.

“The recent surgical operation against some judicial officers is specifically targeted at corruption and not at the judiciary as an institution,” Shehu stated.

“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.”

He noted that reports by a section of the media were giving the Presidency cause for concern.

He warned that in undertaking the task of reporting, the media should be careful about the fault lines they open, saying “It is wrong to present this incident as a confrontation between the executive and judicial arms of government.”

He said the Presidency had received assurances from the DSS that all due processes of the law, including the possession of search and arrest warrants, were obtained before the searches.

Shehu said to suggest that the government was acting outside the law in a dictatorial manner “is to breach the interest of the state.”