Leonard Nzadon, counsel for members of the Peoples Democratic Party accused of assaulting an officer of Nigeria’s secret police, Department of State Services in Adamawa State, has said operatives of the agency threatened to break the leg of his colleague who tried to serve them court papers.
The detained PDP members have approached the court to seek the enforcement of their fundamental human right to liberty.
The applicants, Yusuf Mohammed, Zira John and Solomon Abafras, claimed that they have been held in a DSS detention facility for over seven days without trial.
The trio were arrested for allegedly assaulting a DSS assistant director, Suleiman Halilu Isa, who accused the disgraced Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC), Hudu Yunusa-Ari of collecting a bribe of N2 billion to rig the governorship election in the state.
Isa, in a viral video, alleged that the REC, Yunusa-Ari collected N2 billion to declare the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Aishatu Dahiru Binani, winner of the governorship election.
In the video, he was however seen to have been physically assaulted.
Speaking to journalists, Nzadon decried the continued detention of his clients.
He lamented that the applicants had been in detention since last Wednesday. He described their detention as a violation of their fundamental human rights.
Nzadon said the DSS does not have the right to keep them beyond the time the constitution stipulates, explaining that every Nigerian has a fundamental human right not to be kept in police custody for 48 hours.
He said that the applicants should be released so that if the DSS so desired can proceed with the case against them but not be kept in custody.
On the case before the court, Nzadon said their effort to serve the process on the DSS last Friday failed.
He explained that an interim order was taken to the DSS for the release of the applicants, but the department refused to accept it on the grounds that Friday was a public holiday and that they would not accept service on that day.
He said, "DSS as an organisation is an agency of the state and it is supposed to work in accordance with the rule of law. For the DSS to threaten a lawyer that they will break his leg merely because he took the process to them is unacceptable.
“We are not making an issue for now but should that continue, they will hear from us definitely.”
Meanwhile, some members of the party on Wednesday thronged the DSS office in Yola, the state capital, to demand the release of their detained colleagues.
The protesters took off from the party's state headquarters and went to the DSS office where they presented their complaint letter.
Leading the protesters, the State Chairman of the party, Barrister Tahir Shehu said the protest was necessary because of fellow members detained since last Wednesday by the secret police.