Exactly one week after the suspended governor of the central bank of Nigeria, Mr Godwin Emefiele was arrested and detained by the State Security Services (SSS). Since then, nothing has been heard of him, nobody can tell in what condition he is under their detention. He has spent seven whole days in the secret police’s detention prison without him having access to his lawyers, family members or medical care.
If an elite of the elites like a Central Bank of Nigeria governor can be treated like this then it should cast fear in the mind of average Nigerians of what will become of the common man who finds himself in the sprawling hands of DSS.
Everyone is quiet and pretending as if the way Mr Godwin Emefiele is being treated by the DSS is right because he is deemed to be a public enemy but an injustice to one is an injustice to all despite whomever the one person is. Today it is Mr. Emefiele’s right that is being abused by the SSS tomorrow it might be you.
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Statutorily speaking; according to the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria and the Administration of criminal justice act and other applicable laws in Nigeria, nobody should spend more than 48 hours (maximum of two days) in a law enforcement detention without being charged to court, anything other than that is in breach of the fundamental human rights of the detained no matter whatever offence the suspect is alleged to have committed but Mr Emefiele has not only spent 48 hours but a whole 7 days without access to his legal representatives, his family member or his doctors. He has been grilled and interrogated without his lawyers present. If you see this as the right thing because of who is involved then you should be scared of your own rights.
His legal representative had to file a motion ex parte in court yesterday, the 16th of June praying the court to order the state security services to grant Mr. Emefiele access to his lawyers. The motion court gracefully granted and ordered the SSS to allow Mr Emefiele access to his lawyers pending when the substantive suit comes up in court on 20th June 2020.
It is appalling that it will require a court order before a detained person in SSS custody will get to see and confer with his lawyers. We hope that Mr Emefiele will have his day in court soon. The court is the determinant of whether he is a criminal or not and not the law enforcement agencies.
By the way, as a way of clarifying the confusion, the name “Department of State Services (DSS)” although regularly used to refer to the Nigerian secret police is not known to our law, what our law knows and what the right name for them is State Security Services (SSS).