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Barrister Aloy Ejimakor and Barrister Ifeanyi Ejiofor, the counsels to the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mazi Nnamdi Kanu has described the current state of their client in the custody of the Department of State Services (DSS).
The lawyers made the revelation in a statement titled ‘Mazi Nnamdi Kanu’s detention condition at the DSS amounts to torture’ jointly signed by the lawyers, which was obtained by The Eastern Updates.
They disclosed that the secessionist described his stay at the DSS Headquarters Abuja as harsh, degrading, and inhumane.
He accused the Nigerian secret police of confining him to a very tiny cell for about twenty-three (23) hours of the day without access to sunlight and any social interactions whatsoever within the premises.
Kanu alleged that the move was aimed at inflicting extreme emotional and mental distress on him and breaking him psychologically.
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The statement said that Kanu had instructed them to inform the public 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, other detainees have resorted to avoiding our client and exchanging salutations with him, not to talk of any other form of social interactions any any human being.
‘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. And this has led to a rapid deterioration of his sight.
‘That he has been 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 he has, to date, been denied access to the British Consul despite her repeated requests to see him; and on the day of his last court appearance (10th November, 2021), the British Consul who was in court to observe the proceedings was intimidated by DSS officers, who restricted her from coming close to Mazi Kanu’.
They alleged that since the Federal Government ‘extraordinarily renditioned’ the secessionist, he has not been allowed a change of clothing, stressing that his Jewish prayer shawls and other religious materials which were brought to him in the DSS Headquarters by his counsel were rejected and returned.
The statement also stated that the DSS had repeatedly rejected his requests for an independent medical examination to determine the extent of damage done to his body by a suspected substance he may have been injected with since he was rearrested from Kenya and detained by the secret police.
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