Pelumi Olajengbesi, counsel to the Yoruba nation activist, Sunday Igboho, has issued a 48-hour ultimatum to the State Security Service (SSS) to release 13 aides of the activist in its custody.
Olajengbesi, while addressing journalists on Friday, decried “the refusal of the SSS to honour a clear order of court” granting his clients bail, and threatened to commence contempt proceedings against the Director-General of the DSS, Yusuf Bichi, if the court order was not complied with within 48 hours.
The Eagle Online recalls that DSS operatives in a midnight raid on Igboho’s residence in Ibadan on July 1 arrested 12 associates of Igboho and killed two others.
The detainees are Abdullateef Ofeyagbe, Amoda Babatunde (aka Lady K), Tajudeen Erinoyen, Diakola Ademola, Abideen Shittu, and Jamiu Noah, Ayobami Donald, Adelabe Usman, Oluwafelumi Kunle, Raji Kazeem, Taiwo Opeyemi and Bamidele Sunday.
Following an application by Olajengbesi, a Federal High Court judge in Abuja, Obiora Egwuatu, granted bail to the 12 aides on August 4.
Since meeting their bail conditions and despite the judge’s order for their release, the detainees are still being held in custody without any charges preferred against them.
Olajengbesi said “Such blatant disregard for, and contemptuous, spiteful and insolent disrespect for an order of court if allowed to fester would undermine the very integrity of the court.”
The continued incarceration of Igboho’s aides by the DSS, he said, amounts to “surrendering the freedom and rights of the 12 detainees to the whims and caprices of an agency that has gone rogue and thrives in willful disobedience of court orders.”
“We are giving the SSS, particularly its Director-General, 48 hours and not an hour more, within which to fully obey and comply with the release order of the court in favour of all 12 detained associates of Mr Sunday Igboho or face contempt proceedings before a court of competent jurisdiction.”
Olajengbesi alleged on Friday that his clients were being subjected to all forms of inhumane treatment by the SSS, including the only female among them (Lady K), being forced to change clothes before male detainees.
The lawyer also alleged that the detainees were made to sleep on the bare floor of their cell, with no access to medical doctors, among other gross violations of their rights.