The Federal High Court in Abuja has threatened to jail the Director-General of the State Security Service (SSS), Adeola Ajayi, over the refusal of the establishment refusal to allow lawyers access to Nnamdi Kanu.
Penpushing reports that the court issued threat in a notice ion Friday, warning the secret police boss that further denial of the lawyers’ access to Kanu has been in detention since he was brought back to Nigeria from Kenya in June 2021 under controversial circumstances and now facing terrorism charges
The court in the notice that the action of the State Security Service (SSS) would amount to contempt of the court and might result in Ajayi’s imprisonment, while it is recalled that the legal team of the accused has repeatedly accused the State Security Service (SSS) of denying them access to him.
Penpushing further reports that the judge, Justice Binta Nyako, it is recalled on May 20, 2024, had ordered the State Security Service (SSS) to allow Kanu to receive visitors for three days in a week – Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
‘Take notice that unless you obey the directions contained in this order (see overleaf) – by allowing the applicant’s (Kanu’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 court said in the notice.
Penpushing also reports that the notice was equally uploaded on Facebook by Kanu’s special counsel, Aloy Ejimakor, on Friday evening, stating said the registrar of the court issued the notice, which is titled, “Form 48 Notice of Consequences of Disobedience of the Order of Court brought pursuant to Order IX, Rule 13 of Sheriff and Civil Processes Act, CAP 56, LFN 2004.”
The Special Counsel to the detained Kanu explained that the notice was necessitated by the repeated disobedience of the court-ordered visitation of Kanu by the Director General of the State Security Service (SSS).
Penpushing reports that Ejimakor in the statement on Friday emphasized that legal team has not been allowed access to the leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) since September 24, stressing that the notice is a “quasi-criminal judicial process that forewarns any person disobeying a court order of the penal consequences” of such an act.
“Therefore, if the director-general of SSS persists on this ignoble path, he will leave us with no other option than to commence vigorous contempt proceedings against him’, Kanu’s special counsel emphasised
Penpushing further reports that the court in similar development directed that the Nigerian government should be served with the notice through their lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN)
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