Court threatens to jail DSS DG for denying Nnamdi Kanu access to lawyers
By Jeffrey Agbo
A Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday issued a “notice of consequences” against the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Adeola Ajayi, for contempt of court, threatening to commit him to prison.
The notice said the DSS boss would be jailed if he continued to disobey court orders by denying the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, access to his lawyers.
“TAKE NOTICE that unless you obey the directions contained in this Order (see overleaf) – by allowing the Applicant’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 notice read.
Commenting on the development, Kanu’s special counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, said that the notice by the court was necessitated by the DSS’s repeated disobedience of the court-ordered three days in a week visitation of Kanu by his lawyers.
“This Notice is necessitated by the repeated disobedience of the court-ordered visitation of Mazi Kanu by the newly appointed Director-General of the State Security Services (Mr. Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi) who has, for almost a month, not allowed Mazi Kanu’s Lawyers to visit him,” he said.
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“To be clear, this Notice is a quasi-criminal judicial process that forewarns any person disobeying a court order of the penal consequences of such misconduct.
“Therefore, if the Director-General of DSS persists on this ignoble path, he will leave us with no other option than to commence vigorous contempt proceedings against him.”
On May 20, 2024, Justice Binta Nyako ordered that Kanu, while in DSS custody, should be granted access to his lawyers three days a week.
The court ordered “he is to be given a safe and clean room to be made available to the defendant at the present facility to prepare for his defence with his team of counsel not exceeding 5 in number.
“That they should be allowed such facility that is required for the preparation of his defence and be allowed to take notes.”
But Kanu’s lawyers have severally raised alarm of lack of compliance by the DSS to the court order.