Sambo Dasuki, a retired colonel and former national security adviser, has approached the Supreme Court requested expedited hearing on two appeals he lodged against his continued unlawful detention by the Muhammadu Buhari-led federal government.
Dasuki who has been in custody of the country’s secret police, the State Security Services, SSS, also known as DSS, since December 2015, is challenging the government’s refusal to release him on bail as ordered by different courts of competent jurisdiction.
In a letter addressed to the Acting Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Walter Onnoghen, the former national security adviser through his lead counsel, Mr. J. B. Daudu, SAN, begged the apex court to accelerate hearing on his bail request in order to stop the government from further infringing on his fundamental human rights.
He told the acting CJN that the two pending appeals which he filed in August, were in compliance with the Supreme Court practice directions.
In the letter dated November 30, 2016 and received by the apex court on Tuesday, December 6, 2016, Dasuki, further prayed the court to exercise its discretion in his favour by granting quick determination of the two appeals because of their peculiar nature.
Daudu in the letter recalled that his client was arraigned by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission, EFCC, on charges of breach of trust, criminal misappropriation and sundry offences before two high courts of the Federal Capital Territory between September and December last year.
He stated that following a not guilty plea by his client, the two courts granted him bail and the conditions perfected by the appellant. The letter explained that no sooner had Dasuki perfected his bail conditions than the DSS operatives swooped on him and abducted him at Kuje prison gate.
He said his client have since then been in detention without trial. Daudu told Justice Onnoghen that the only reason federal government adduced to justify “the abduction” of his client, which was not backed by any law, was that Dasuki posed a security risk.
“The same government having breached his right to fair trial by not allowing him proceed on bail to have adequate time and facilities to prepare his defence, interfered with his constitutionally guaranteed presumption of innocence by continuing to detain him without trial has insisted on several occasions to proceed with the charges afore described, knowing full well that the appellant has no access to documents with which he would wish to defend himself,” the letter said.
