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.
