(Onitsha Nigeria, 1st of September 2016)-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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