* NSA, DSS disobey court’s unconditional release order
* He’s boko haram member, undergoing rehabilitation, trial in military custody – DSS Claims
The family of Adam Abdulah Oyibo has expressed worry over the life, whereabouts, and well-being of their breadwinner, who was arrested and incarcerated without contact with his family members or trial in any civil court for 14 years.
Oyibo was last seen by his wife, Bilqees, and his two children on October 30, 2012.
Bilqees, in an affidavit deposed to in 2019, noted that her husband, Oyibo, who engages in teaching young persons Islamic studies within the Gwarko community of the FCT, had visited the National Mosque, Abuja, on the said date, in pursuit of his plans to establish a formal Islamic school. He was, however, arrested in a commercial vehicle on his way back from the Abuja city and whisked away by DSS operatives.
Bilqees further explained that DSS operatives led her husband to their Gwarko residence the following day ( October 31, 2012) to conduct a search.
“DSS operatives came into our residence with my husband on October 31, 2012, apparently to conduct a search. They ended up breaking the entrance door and ransacked our one-bedroom apartment. They, however, left the residence without any item as whatever they might be looking for was not found,” Bilqees stated in an affidavit.
All efforts by the family to establish contacts with Oyibo proved abortive, as several letters written to the DSS between November 2012 and December 2017 were ignored.
Six years after the arrest, Justice Anwuri Chikere of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja delivered a judgment in June 2019 ordering his immediate release from detention. Justice Chikere also awarded a sum of N5 million as general damages for the breach of his fundamental human rights.
Human rights lawyer Lukman Hassan had approached the court in a suit number FHC/ABJ/CS/155/2019, seeking enforcement of Oyibo’s fundamental human rights.
Specifically, Hassan sought an order of the court declaring that the arrest and incarceration of Oyibo by agents of the State Security Service constitute an infraction of his rights under sections 34 and 35 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended. He also argued that the arrest and incarceration violated articles 3, 5, 6, and 12 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
Hassan urged the court to direct the director-general of the DSS, the National Security Adviser, and their agents or privies to release Oyibo and award the sum of N20 million as general damages for the infraction of his fundamental human rights.
According to the judgment exclusively obtained by The Verge, counsel to the DSS, Godwin Agbadua, had submitted a counter affidavit sworn by one Ayuba Adam on the 7th March 2019, where the state service insisted that it did not arrest or detain anybody by the name Adam Abdulahi Oyibo.
The DSS also submitted that Oyibo was not in any facility within its control or to its knowledge.
But in a sharp contrast, Agbadua tendered a further counter affidavit deposed to by the same Ayuba Adam on the 15th April 2019, where the DSS eventually admitted that the suspect was arrested and transferred to a military detention facility for trial and de-radicalisation.
Following the inconsistencies in Agbadua’s submission, Justice Chikere held that the DSS was insincere with Oyibo’s arrest and detention.
“The contradictions in the paragraphs of the same dependents, Ayuba Adam, who had the authority of the DSS, are very unfortunate and the height of insincerity to the life and family of Oyibo, who have been writing them in order to have access to him, at least.
“Assuming the NSA and DSS were sincere with respect to the arrest and detention, they ought to have responded to the various letters written to them by informing the families and legal practitioners of Oyibo that he is in purported military facilities. The failure to respond to those letters clearly shows the continuous violation of his fundamental rights,” the judgment reads in part.
According to Justice Chikere, the statement by the NSA and DSS that Oyibo was transferred to the Military Facility and facing trial in Kanji , Niger State, was not in any way substantiated with any evidential proof of a document.
The court, thereby, made an order compelling the NSA and the DSS to release Oyibo, at the same time awarding the sum of N5 million against the state for the infraction of Oyibo’s fundamental rights.
Dissatisfied with Justice Chikere’s decision, counsel to the NSA and DSS, Godwin Agbadua, in January 2020, made an application for a stay of execution. The application was, however, refused by the court.
Despite the subsisting court judgment and failed stay of execution, the suspect remains in custody, and the security agencies did not allow access to him by his lawyers and family members.
Counsel to Oyibo, Hassan, confirmed that Agbadua and his legal team filed an appeal at the lower court, but they failed to compile and transmit records to the Court of Appeal.
“This simply means that there is no information at the Court of Appeal that there was an appeal at all,” Hassan said.
