By Adadareporters
Barr Aloy Ejimakor, the lead counsel to Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, Thursday, lamented how Kanu’s continued detention at the custody of the Department of State Services is hindering Kanu’s legal team’s access to him.
Kanu is the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, and is charged with alleged terrorism and jumping bail. He was renditioned from Kenya to Nigeria in 2021 in a manner said to be at variance with international laws and treaties which Nigeria is a signatory.
Ejimakor, in a press release, stated that Kanu would likely not get fair hearing because of restrictions which his legal team encounters in accessing him. His legal team had filed a suit praying for the restoration of the bail earlier granted Kanu, his transfer to a Nigerian Correctional Centre, or placing him to house arrest.
When the matter came up on 20th May 2024 at the Federal High Court, Abuja, which was presided over by Justice Binta Murtala-Nyako, the court refused to grant the requests.
Ejimakor stated that the refusal of the court to restore Kanu’s bail was contrary to the earlier ruling of the Supreme Court.
Justice Nyako, it was gathered, rather entered an order modifying the conditions of counsel visitation to Mazi Kanu. The modified order, according to the court, aimed at expanding the opportunity for Kanu’s lawyers to adequately prepare him for trial in a way that would ensure that he gets a fair trial.
The modification further provided that Kanu be permitted by the DSS to meet with up to five of his lawyers, consulting with him as a team, not separately as was done before. It also provided that such consultation be done in a “private room” at the State Security Services where Kanu is currently detained, Ejmakor said.
The lead counsel, in the release, claimed non-compliance with the court modifications when Kanu’s lawyers went to consult with him on Thursday.
According to him, “After duly notifying the DSS with names of the four lawyers billed to meet with Kanu [on Thursday], the lawyers timely presented themselves at the DSS to meet with Kanu as a group or together but the DSS refused, insisting that the lawyers meet with Kanu separately. To be sure, this is a flagrant disobedience of the court order.”
He said what transpired was a confirmation of the position of Kanu’s legal team “that continuing to detain Kanu at the DSS constitutes a permanent hindrance to any prospect of getting a fair trial for him”.
In his words, “This is the reason we had filed applications to either restore his bail, transfer him to prison custody or to home detention, but the court refused all the applications.
“Additionally, the room where the lawyers were separately taken to meet with Kanu is an office of a senior officer of the DSS, and hardly qualifies as a private room that is presumably free from any secret monitoring devices, which is the case with the interrogation room where Kanu previously met with his lawyers.”
He also recalled that the court order gave leave to the lawyers to enter with books and to take notes from briefings with Mazi Kanu.
He however said, “In addition to disallowing team visitation, the DSS also disallowed our entry into the room with papers, and collected our eye glasses, such that some of us could not read the provisions of the extant laws to which Kanu adverted us as crucial to preparing his defence.”
He then submitted that, “The only reasonable conclusion emanating from this anomalous situation is that the prosecution which is pushing for an accelerated trial is either unserious or that it wants an accelerated kangaroo trial, lacking in any scintilla of fair play.
“No criminal trial can happpen where there is absence of equality of arms. The conditions of detention of the defendant must be free from any hindrances to the adequate preparation of the defendant for his defence. This is an irreducible minimum strictly demanded by the Nigerian Constitution before any criminal trial can ensue.”
Kanu’s legal team, in the release, reiterated their professional commitment to ensure that Kanu “can never be subjected to a trial that is against the tenets of the constitution”, adding that the opposite “will amount to a grave miscarriage of justice and is unethical to boot.”
