Justice Binta Nyako of the Federal High Court, Abuja has come under fire for allegedly acting weak before the Department of State Services, DSS.
The judge, according to the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has allowed the security agency to flout her orders without any form of regard.
Recall that Aloy Ejimakor, special counsel for the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra IPOB leader, Nnamdi Kanu, during the week said the DSS prevented them from meeting the secessionist leader.
This act, according to Ejimakor, was against the order of Justice Nyako that Kanu should have access to his lawyers twice a week – Mondays and Thursdays.
HURIWA noted that denying Kanu access to his lawyers was the highest manifestation of lawlessness and total disregard to the judge.
It also lambasted the DSS for allegedly denying Kanu access to his lawyers, contrary to court orders in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko.
Onwubiko recalled that the DSS had been “flouting the orders of Justice Nyako and the judge had not deemed it fit to hammer any sanction on the DSS.”
The judge had ordered that the security agency provides Kanu maximum comfort as long as he remained in its custody which include changing his clothes and access to his Jewish materials.
“But it is ridiculously shocking that the DSS continues to flout the orders of the judge with impunity and the judge sees no reason to slam a sanction on the secret police which is meant to uphold the law,” the group lamented.
HURIWA further pointed to a contempt application filed against the DG of DSS by Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyers that is until now not been heard or even transmitted to any judge.
The group said all this put together is triggering the suspicion that the Nigerian judiciary has surrendered her constitutional powers to the executive arm of government that commands and controls the DSS.
“The judge had also ruled that the DSS allow Kanu access to his lawyers and any person he deems fit to visit him but the failure to comply by the DSS has not attracted any sanction.
“The manner and mistreatment of Kanu in detention is bothersome. Kanu not being allowed to change his clothes because the DSS said he can’t put on Isi Agu the traditional clothes of the Igbo race.
“How come that DSS operatives wear babanriga of the northerners and Western suits of foreign jurisdiction but is even heard arguing that wearing of the Igbo native Isi Agu is offensive to the DSS?”
