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| The Return of State Terrorism in Nigeria: Continued Extra Judicial Detention of Nnamdi Kanu as a Case-Study (2) |
(Onitsha Nigeria, 16th November 2015)-This is the concluding
part of our letter, referenced above, to the United Nations Secretary General
and eleven other influential members of the international community (US, UK,
EU, Vatican, France, Germany, Australia, Brazil, India, Japan and Canada),
dated 13th November 2015 and referenced: Intersociety/SE/CSOs/01/11/015/Inter-Community/UN. The
letter is supported and adopted by Coalition of the Southeast based Human
Rights Organizations and copied to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, the
Attorney General of the Federation, the Chairman of Board of the National Human
Rights Commission and the National Security Adviser.
Use of DSS for State
Terrorism: The legal powers and duties of the DSS
are contained in Section 2 (3)(a)(b)(c) of the National Security
Agencies Act Cap 74, Laws of Nigeria 2004, to include: prevention and detection within
Nigeria of any crime against internal security of Nigeria, the
protection and preservation of all non-military classified matters concerning
the internal security of Nigeria; and such other responsibilities affecting the
internal security within Nigeria as the National Assembly or the President,
as case may be, may deem necessary.
In other words, the DSS was created with primary responsibility of
manning internal intelligence security of Nigeria and protection of VIPs. All
the powers and duties of the DSS as contained in the National Security Agencies
Act of 2004 are subject to the provisions of the 1999 Constitution and its Rule
of Law principles.
The DSS is also closest
to, and directly controlled by President Muhammadu Buhari. This is contained in
Section 3 (2) (a) of the Nigerian Security Agencies Act Cap 74, Laws of Nigeria
2004. The Service is one of the three successor-security intelligence agencies
of the moribund National Security Organization (NSO), which was extensively
deployed and used by Major Gen Muhammadu Buhari (as he then was in 1984 and
1985) to enforce his two infamous and draconian Decrees No 2 of 1984
(detention of persons without trial) & No 4 (public officers protection
against false accusation) of 1984 leading to reported countless
disappearances, unlawful arrests, long custodial detentions, torture and
unlawful killings under his military regime. The remaining two intelligence
organizations created from moribund NSO are the National Intelligence Agency-NIA
(for external intelligence) and the Directorate of Military Intelligence-DMI
(for military intelligence).
It is therefore important
to inform Your Excellencies that the DSS has since June 2015 carried out at
least twelve State-terror invasions, arrests and detentions of Nigerian
leading citizens of politically and socially vocal backgrounds. The
circumstances and reasons for such invasions, arrests and detentions are
flimsy, politically vindictive and incoherent with the Fundamental Human Rights
provisions of the 1999 Constitution and its enshrined principles of the Rule of
Law. With just 166 days or barely six months in office of President Muhammadu
Buhari, the DSS has already run riot on not less than twelve leading citizens
in the country.
Related Stories:
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Muhammadu Buhari: The budding Idi Amin of Nigeria
General Muhammadu Buhari: A Political Realist or a Nepotistic DULLARD? Inadvertently bumbling Buhari DIVIDED Nigeria!
From Gordon Obua
(immediate past CSO to former President Goodluck Jonathan) to Sambo Dasuki
(immediate past NSA); from Rivers and Akwa Ibom States Resident Electoral
Commissioners and their six principal officers (arrested and detained while
defending their 2015 governorship poll results at electoral courts) to Hon
Justice Muazu Pindigi (chairman of the Rivers State Governorship Electoral
Court threatened by DSS and sacked by the Appeal Court President); and from
Sambo Dasuki (for the record second time) to Citizen Nnamdi Kanu, the list of
the DSS riotous conducts and operational brigandage in less than 180 days of
the Buhari’s Presidency has continued ceaselessly and uncontrollably. Of all
the coercive or armed security establishments under the present Buhari’s administration,
the DSS is the most extensively used and deployed by the Presidency to perpetrate
and perpetuate these anti democratic and anti constitutional conducts;
otherwise called State terrorism.
Disobedience to Rule of
Law, Judicial Pronouncements & Human Rights Norms: The Buhari’s Presidency
in Nigeria is extensively using the DSS to pervert the course of justice
including flouting with reckless abandon, judicial pronouncements including
court orders. As a matter of fact, the SSS (DSS)’s reckless abuse of judicial
process and flouting of judicial orders have risen to an apogee. As we write
Your Excellencies, the Service is still laying siege on the residence of the
former National Security Adviser, Retired Col Sambo Dasuki, despite a
subsisting order of the Federal High Court Six, sitting in Abuja, which had on
3rd November 2015 granted him three weeks leave for his overseas
medical appointment. The Order was reaffirmed on 13th November 2015
by the Presiding Judge, Hon Justice Adeniyi Ademola; yet the Service still
observes same in gross breach.
Further, the
constitutional rights of the Nigerian citizens to life, dignity of human person,
personal liberty, fair hearing, freedom of expression, movement, peaceful
assembly, association and freedom from discrimination have been
threatened and trampled upon by the Buhari administration using the DSS in the
past 166 days of its presidency. These rights are judicially enshrined in
Sections 33, 34, 35, 36, 39, 40, 41 and 42 of the Fundamental Human Rights
Charter of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
Regionally and
internationally speaking, these rights are also provided in the African
Charter on Human & Peoples Rights (AU) and the International Covenant on
Civil & Political Rights (UN).
By Article 1 of the ICCPR (UN), it is further provided
that:
all peoples shall have the right of self-determination and by virtue of that
right they shall freely determine their political status and freely pursue
their economic, social and cultural development. By Article 3 of the
same ICCPR,
the States Parties to the present Covenant, including those having responsibility
for the administration of Non-Self-Governing and Trust Territories, shall
promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect
that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United
Nations. By Article 20 of the ACHPR (AU), ratified and
domesticated by Nigeria, all peoples shall have right to existence
and they shall have unquestionable and inalienable right to self determination.
From the foregoing Your
Excellencies, it has been empirically established that Nigeria under Buhari’s
Presidency has observed in gross breach its constitutional, municipal, regional
and international human rights treaties’ obligations. We have also thoroughly
searched the 320 Sections of the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria and its
subsidiary laws and there is no provision where President Muhammadu Buhari
through his DSS is given power to continue to detain a citizen (Nnamdi Kanu),
who was charged to court by the same Buhari’s DSS with the same court at which
he was charged granting him bail based on “bailability” of criminal charges
preferred against him.
It is also unheard of in
the history of democracy and its constitutionalism in Nigeria that an
accused person with misdemeanor charges who was granted a judicial bail and
fulfilled all his bail conditions within three days has remained kept behind
the DSS bars for a period of 27 days (20th October to 16th
Nov). Also saddening is the reckless flouting and rapacious
disobedience by the DSS of three court orders (production (twice), bail
and transfer) made by the trial Magistrate between October 19 and 28,
2015.
Our writing Your
Excellencies, therefore, is for Your Excellencies to take firm diplomatic,
political and bilateral/multilateral notice of continued detention of
Citizen Nnamdi Kanu in particular and the country’s steady drift into anarchy
and dictatorship in general. In the past weeks, mass protests involving
millions of citizens of Nigeria including school children, women and the elderly
have gripped major cities of Awka, Onitsha, Nnewi, Owerri, Umuahia, Okigwe,
Enugu, Asaba, Uyo, Yanagoa, Port Harcourt, Benin and Calabar in Southeast and
South-south Nigeria as well as dozens of foreign capital cities over the
continued detention of Citizen Nnamdi Kanu. In all these, President Muhammadu
Buhari and his DSS have kept unholy sealed lips; in reminiscence of State
of terror during his military days of 1984 to 1985.
Arresting and detaining
citizens outside judicial process and pronouncements are the greatest threat to
democracy and rule of law in Nigeria and a clear return of State terrorism in
the country. This trend, if unchecked,
will not only lead to lawlessness, but will also compound the country’s fragile
contraption and further undermine and threaten its fragile Statehood. The
inability and unwillingness of the Buhari administration to frontally address
these landmines may most undermine the legitimacy of governmental
powers and authority; which can be a recipe for civil disobedience and collapse
of traditional State power and legitimacy.
We, therefore, call on
Your Excellencies to bring Your Excellencies’ political, economic and diplomatic
influences, interests and pressures upon President Muhammadu Buhari and
his administration. He must be told in an unmistakable language to release with
immediate effect and unconditionally Citizen Nnamdi Kanu as well as dropping
all charges against him. President Buhari should also be advised to drastically
change his highly divisive governing styles above highlighted and save the
country from possible eruption into another round of civil disturbances and
violence of intractable proportions; propelled by his administration’s steady
promotion, aiding and abetting of triggers of social fragmentation and divided
society. When a State takes recourse
to reckless and naked application and use of State coercive power, its
traditional power and authority monopoly instantly becomes threatened and
endangered.
Yours Faithfully,
For: International Society for Civil Liberties & the Rule
of Law
Emeka Umeagbalasi, B.Sc. (Hons), Criminology & Security
Studies
Board Chairman
+2348174090052 (office)
Uzochukwu Oguejiofor-Nwonu, Esq., (LLB, BL), Head, Campaign
& Publicity Department
Obianuju Igboeli, Esq., (LLB, BL), Head, Civil Liberties
& Rule of Law Program
Supported By: Coalition of the Southeast based Human Rights
Organizations:
1. Comrade Aloysius Attah (+2348035090548)
For: Anambra State Branch of the Civil Liberties Organization
2. Comrade Peter Onyegiri (+2347036892777)
For: Center for Human Rights & Peace Advocacy
3. Comrade Samuel Njoku (+2348039444628)
For: Human Rights Club (a project of LRRDC)
4. Comrade Justus Uche Ijeoma(+2348037114869)
For: Forum for Justice, Equity & Defense of Human Rights
5. Comrade Chike Umeh ( +2348064869601)
For: Society Advocacy Watch Project
6. Obianuju Joy Igboeli, Esq. (+2348034186332)
For: Anambra Human Rights Forum
7. Comrade Alex Olisa(+2348034090410)
For: Southeast Good Governance Forum
8. Eze Eluchie, Esq. (+2348175177880)
For: PADDI Foundation
Related Stories:
#NnamdiKanu, Buhari’s GESTAPO and unjust crackdown on Biafrans
As Buhari turns DSS into Hausa-Fulani GESTAPO, Biafrans begin to disappear. . .
Muhammadu Buhari: The budding Idi Amin of Nigeria
General Muhammadu Buhari: A Political Realist or a Nepotistic DULLARD? Inadvertently bumbling Buhari DIVIDED Nigeria!
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