Aloy Ejimakor, Special Counsel for the detained leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra, Nnamdi Kanu, has said that the Department of State Services detained and interrogated him for hours on Wednesday when he visited his client in the custody of the secret police.
Ejimakor and another counsel for Kanu, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, made this known in a statement jointly signed on Thursday.
In the statement titled, ‘Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s detention condition at the DSS amounts to torture,’ the IPOB leader’s counsels said Kanu’s condition in custody “continues to be harsh, degrading and inhumane” despite a court order to the contrary.
“That he is solitarily confined to a very tiny cell twenty-three (23) hours of the day without access to sunlight and any social interactions whatsoever. He believes that this is aimed at inflicting extreme emotional and mental distress on him and breaking him psychologically.
“That any detainee who encounters and greets him during the single hour he is allowed outside his cell is promptly put in solitary confinement or transferred to maximum security as a punishment for exchanging mere greetings with him. Because of this, detainees have resorted to avoiding him and exchanging salutations with him, not to talk of any other form of social interactions.
“That since the Nigerian government extraordinarily renditioned him, he has not been allowed a change of clothing; and his Jewish prayer shawls and other religious materials brought to him by his Counsel were rejected and returned.
“That the DSS has refused to replace his corrective glasses (lenses) which were smashed to smithereens by agents of the Nigerian government in the process of the violence they unleashed on him while abducting him in Kenya. This has led to a rapid deterioration of his sight.
“That he is restricted to meeting with his Counsel in an atmosphere devoid of private discussions with his Counsel; and he is oftentimes denied perusal of legal documentation his Counsel brings to him to review.
“That he is not allowed to sleep with a pillow and this has led to him developing acid reflux which comes with acute burning sensations in his chest, chest pains and extreme difficulty in swallowing.
“That on the 17th July 2021, one of his Lawyers (the undersigned Barrister Aloy Ejimakor) was detained and interrogated for hours by the DSS when he came to the DSS on visitation to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu. Mazi Kanu, who witnessed the detention before being led away was very distressed and alarmed by this incident and he considers it a brazen act of intimidation of his Counsel.
“That in the circumstance of the forgoing, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu continues to have a persistent and heightened feeling of portent threat to his overall well-being and safety within the DSS facility where he is currently detained.”
Kanu, 54, was born on September 25, 1967, at Afaraukwu, Abia State. He had earlier jumped bail in June 2018 before leaving for the United Kingdom though he said that he fled because his life was no longer safe in Nigeria.
After about three years abroad, the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), at a press briefing in Abuja on June 29, 2021, announced that the IPOB leader was re-arrested in a foreign country and extradited to Nigeria.
His lawyers had said the IPOB leader was re-arrested in Kenya and whisked to Nigeria.
Upon his re-arrest and extradition in June 2021, he was re-arraigned before Justice Binta Nyako for terrorism-related charges and has since been remanded in the DSS custody in Abuja.
Justice Nyako had adjourned the trial of Kanu to October 21, 2021, for continuation of hearing but the trial was adjourned till November 10, 2021. The case was again adjourned till January 19 and 20, 2022, for trial.
