Following high cases of
suspected death of Nigerian citizens in the custodies of the security agencies
and recent violent attacks launched by security forces in some high profile
prisons across the country, the leadership of International Society for
Civil Liberties & the Rule of Law (Intersociety) is deeply concerned
that the abducted IPOB activists presently in incommunicado detention by the
authorities of the Department of State Security; Nigeria’s secret police, may
most likely die in the DSS solitary confinement under highly questionable
circumstances.
Nigerians including rights and media activists have in the past
weeks raised concerns about increasing deaths in detention and violent attacks
in a number of detention facilities across the country including some maximum
security prisons. Such deaths in detention have been reported in the EFCC detention
facilities maintained and manned by the operatives of the Nigeria Police Force
and the DSS. The authorities of the Nigerian Prisons Service have also alleged
attempted prison breaks and used them as a cover to unleash violent attacks on
such prisons with intent to kill high profile detainees who are in awaiting or
undergoing trial and blame their death on “jail breaks”. One of the most recent
of such State violent attacks was reported to have been launched at the Kuje
Prison; close to the cell room of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu(POC), during which tear
gas canisters with possible lethal substances were reported to have been
recklessly used.
The authorities of the DSS have also gone rioting; abducting,
shooting, torturing, incriminating and detaining IPOB activists across the
country particularly in Southeast and South-south parts of Nigeria. We had in
our two previous publications dated 26th and 28th of August 2016, raised
alarm and informed all Nigerians and members of the international community of
indiscriminate crackdown, arrest and long detention without trial or charge of
IPOB activists by the DSS. We specifically cited the case of Citizen Chidiebere
Onwudiwe, who was trailed and later abducted in his sleep in his residence near
Port Harcourt in Rivers State, South-south Nigeria. Citizen Chidiebere Onwudiwe
(Nigeria’s National Coordinator of IPOB) was abducted in the late night of 22nd June 2016 and till
date, a period of 70 days; he has not been charged to court or put on fair
trial.
We cited another horrible case of Citizen Chukwuka Sunday Obasi
(Nnewi-Ichi Coordinator of IPOB in Anambra State, Southeast Nigeria) who was
ambushed in his sleep by DSS operatives in the late night of 16th of August 2016 in his
Amuwo-Nnewi residence; shot twice in his two legs before he was whisked away
till date. The DSS operatives had earlier on 13th of July 2016 raided the
sleeping abode of Citizen Justice O. Udeh (another IPOB official in Abia State)
in Port Court in Rivers State and abducted him in his sleep. Citizen Justice O.
Udeh has neither been released nor put on trial till date.
On 26th of August 2016, the DSS operatives, joined by the personnel of
the Nigerian Army and the Nigeria Police Force in Abia State, Southeast
Nigeria; ambushed a commercial Hummer Bus carrying the following IPOB
activists: Citizens Ikechukwu Ugwuoha (Abia State Coordinator of IPOB),
Asochukwu Ugochukwu, Sunday J. Okafor, Ekene Onuoha and Joseph Okorie (Ogbuawa)
and other seven passengers. They were ambushed at Ugba Junction near Aba, handcuffed
and blindfolded; before they were moved to the Ngwa High School temporary
headquarters of the 144 Battalion of the Nigerian Army where they were beaten
and tortured for over three hours, from where they were moved to the DSS office
at Umuahia and detained till date.
As we speak, they are still detained at the Abia State Directorate
of the DSS, located near Government House where they are strongly believed to
be undergoing torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatments or
punishments. The five IPOB activists detained by the DSS; likewise Citizens
Chukwuka Sunday Obasi and Justice O. Udeh, have been held solitarily and denied
access to their families, doctors and lawyers. Some members of their families
that visited the DSS office at Umuahia yesterday, 31st of August 2016 were
told that the DSS arrested their relatives, but “they have been transferred to
Abuja”. This usually means something sinister per DSS and Police SARS: it could
mean that the detainees have been “wasted” (killed in custody). In the instant
case, it may have been told so as to discourage the detained IPOB activists’
relatives from further visiting the Directorate at Umuahia in search of their
beloved relatives.
It is also feared in some quarters that Citizen Chukwuka Sunday Obasi
has died in the DSS custody following two gunshots he received from DSS in the
course of his abduction in the late night of 16th of August 2016. It is
on record that arrested citizens shot and wounded by their arresters and
detainers are rarely treated medically. It is also recalled that the leader of
the Muslim Movement of Nigeria, Sheik Ibrahim El-Zaky Zaky (POC) was brutally
shot severally and battered during the Army attacks and massacre of over 800 of
his unarmed followers in December 2015. He was violently arrested and taken
into custody. Till date, a period of nine months, he has neither been seen nor
released or tried. He is believed to have been transferred to the DSS custody
by the Nigerian Army and fears have heightened that he has died in custody.
The renewed crackdown on IPOB activists has not only heightened
fears, but also forced hundreds of married women who are members and supporters
of IPOB and its activism to abandon their children and marriages and go into
hiding particularly in Aba, Abia State where the DSS and the Nigerian Army have
let loose and gone on rampage. Among the 20 IPOB activists freed on 11th of August 2016 by the
Aba Magistrate Court 1, on account of the AGF directive; six of them are
married women with kids and they have gone into hiding following the DSS
crackdown. There are over 150 married women who are sympathetic to IPOB cause
in Abia State alone and most of them have at least two kids each. Those kids
and their fathers have been abandoned and uncared for till date.
It is shocking and alarming as why the DSS could be dissipating
its energy and wasting the country’s lean resources by unleashing a crackdown
on Citizens who never use or advocate violence while it turns blind eyes on the
activities of murderous entities like the Fulani Terror Group or Fulani
Janjaweed. The leadership and members of the Miyyati Allah Cattle Owners and
Herders in Nigeria, who have become a criminal entity and individuals, are
rewarded on daily basis for massacring hundreds of innocent and defenceless
Nigerians every month, yet a group of unarmed and nonviolent citizens are
hunted by the DSS with reckless abandon; to the extent that innocent and law
abiding married women with toddlers are now forced out of their marriages and
homes on account of the DSS recklessness.
We hereby call on the Attorney General of the Federation to call
the authorities of the DSS and the Nigerian Army to order. It is a height of
securitization recklessness and brigandage for the authorities of the DSS to
flout and disrespect the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999,
upon which the recent directive of the AGF is predicated; by running riot on
unarmed, nonviolent and defenceless citizens. The latest brigandage and rioting
of the DSS must be cut to sizes!
The long periods and other unconstitutional measures adopted by
the DSS in abduction, shooting and detention of IPOB activists are a clear case
of the fact that “the DSS now exercises its powers of arrest, detention and use
of force arbitrarily and has no single credible criminal accusation and
evidence against the IPOB activists”, except its utter desperation using
torture to concoct one. The silence of the Government of Abia State in the
ongoing macabre act of the DSS in its State is also shocking.
The AGF is also called upon, as the Chief Law Officer of the
Federation, to ensure the immediate cessation of the DSS atrocities under
complaint. The Department must be stopped at all costs from its steady suicidal
match into the abyss of lawlessness. There is no law in Nigeria that empowers
the DSS to detain those it clamps into its custody for whatever reasons for 70
days without trial. The Department also grossly oversteps its statutory bounds
by arresting, detaining, shooting and torturing citizens under “trial-by-ordeal”
or jungle justice.
In the instant case, therefore, the DSS must be directed to free
all the IPOB activists in its unlawful custody and if any of them dies in its
custody, the Principal heads of the Department shall be held to account. The Department
must be reminded at all times that crimes particularly those against humanity
are not statute-bared! Blaming its regime atrocities of today on “the Buhari
Administration”, when the latter must have ceased presidentially and
democratically, will also not be acceptable to us.
The “Hissene Habre
justice” will surely be replicated here at the appropriate time!!
Signed:
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule of
Law (Intersociety)
Emeka Umeagbalasi, Board Chairman
Mobile Line: +2348174090052
Website: www.intersociety-ng.org
Obianuju Igboeli, Esq.,
(LLB, BL)
Head, Civil Liberties & Rule of Law Program
Mobile Line: +2348034186332
Email: igboeliobianuju@gmail.com
Chinwe Umeche, Esq.,
(LLB, BL)
Head, Democracy &
Good Governance Program
Mobile Line:
+2347013238673
Email: chinwe.englewood@gmail.com
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