Court threatens to jail SSS DG over Nnamdi Kanu

The Federal High Court in Abuja has threatened to imprison the Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), Adeola Ajayi, over the secret police’s refusal to allow lawyers access to Nnamdi Kanu.

Mr Kanu, who is facing terrorism charges, is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB).

The IPOB leader has been in detention since he was brought back to Nigeria from Kenya in June 2021 under controversial circumstances.

His legal team has repeatedly accused the SSS of denying them access to Mr Kanu.

Court warning

The Federal High Court Abuja, in a notice issued on Friday, warned Mr Ajayi that further denial of the lawyers’ access to the IPOB leader would amount to contempt of the court and might result in his (Ajayi) imprisonment.

The judge, Binta Nyako, on 20 May this year, had ordered the SSS to allow Mr Kanu to receive visitors for three days in a week – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.

“Take notice that unless you obey the directions contained in this order (see overleaf) – by allowing the applicant’s (Kanu’s) counsel to conduct the court-ordered visitations with the applicant on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays – you will be guilty of contempt of court and will be liable to be committed to prison,” the court warned Mr Ajayi in the Friday notice.

The notice was also uploaded on Facebook by Mr Kanu’s special counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, on Friday evening.

Mr Ejimakor said the registrar of the court issued the notice.

The notice was titled, “Form 48 Notice of Consequences of Disobedience of the Order of Court brought pursuant to Order IX, Rule 13 of Sheriff and Civil Processes Act, CAP 56, LFN 2004.”

Apart from Mr Ajayi, the court directed that the federal government should be served with the notice through their lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria.

Why the notice was issued

Mr Ejimakor, in a statement on Friday, said the notice was necessitated by the “repeated disobedience of the court-ordered visitation” of Mr Kanu by the SSS director-general.

The lawyer said Mr Kanu’s legal team has not been allowed access to the IPOB leader since 24 September.

He explained that the notice is a “quasi-criminal judicial process that forewarns any person disobeying a court order of the penal consequences” of such an act.

“Therefore, if the director-general of SSS persists on this ignoble path, he will leave us with no other option than to commence vigorous contempt proceedings against him,” Mr Ejimakor stated.

Background

Mr Kanu’s legal team has repeatedly accused SSS of denying them access to him.

The legal team, for instance, accused the SSS of blocking them from visiting the IPOB leader last Monday.

The lawyers, on 27 September, made a similar allegation against the SSS.

Before then, the SSS allegedly prevented some lawyers from seeing the IPOB leader in 2021.

The incident had reoccurred in 2022, about a year after.

Mr Kanu was first arrested in 2015 under the administration of former Nigerian President, Muhammadu Buhari.

The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on 13 October 2022, held that the IPOB leader was extraordinarily renditioned to Nigeria and that the action was a flagrant violation of the country’s extradition treaty and also a breach of his fundamental human rights.

The court, therefore, struck out the terrorism charges filed against Mr Kanu by the Nigerian government and ordered his release from the facility of the SSS.

But the government refused to release the IPOB leader, insisting that he (Kanu) could be unavailable in subsequent court proceedings if released and that his release would cause insecurity in the South-east, where he comes from.

The government, through the office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, later appealed the court ruling and subsequently obtained an order staying the execution of the court judgement at the Supreme Court.

Delivering judgement on the appeal on 15 December 2023, the Supreme Court reversed the acquittal granted to Mr Kanu by the lower court and consequently ordered continuation of his trial at the Federal High Court Abuja.