The rule of law serves as the guidepost for all authorities, persons and institutions under our constitutional democracy. Law enforcement agents and agencies which interact with the ordinary citizens on a daily basis have the unalloyed and sacrosanct duty to ensure the protection of the rights of the citizens as guaranteed by law. Law enforcement agents and agencies must therefore endeavour to observe, enforce and secure the observance of lex retro juris (the law behind the law). This can only be done by a moral commitment to the laws that they are called upon to administer and/or enforce. Without such a commitment, the in aeternum question: quis custodit custodes (who will guard the guard) and who will police the police persists. See generally: The Principles of Fair Hearing and the Powers of Arrests and Sanctions by Law Enforcement Agencies in Nigeria (2009) 2 NJPL 258. ?Fundamental rights are rights which stand above the ordinary laws of the land. They are in fact antecedent to the political society itself. Fundamental rights which have been described as the minimum living standard for civilized humanity have their origin dating back to the Magna Carta, the Royal Charter of political rights given to rebellious English Barons by King John on June 19, 1215. They are rights which embrace and encompass the concepts of liberty and justice. The fundamental rights have been enshrined in the Constitution so that the rights could be inalienable and immutable to the extent of the non-immutability of the Constitution itself. See RANSOME-KUTI vs. ATTORNEY-GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION (1985) 7 NWLR (PT 6) 211 at 229 - 231. It is the fact of the enshrinement of these fundamental rights in the Constitution that confers the fundamental rights the status of being over and above other human rights.

Per OGAKWU, J.C.A. in CHROME INSURANCE BROKERS LIMITED & ORS v. THE ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL CRIMES COMMISSION & ORS (2018) LPELR-44818(CA)