Nnamdi Kanu, the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra, IPOB, has cried out that his condition has worsened under the custody of the Department of State Services, DSS, as the agency declined his request for an independent medical examination.
Kanu who spoke through his lawyers, Aloy Ejimakor and Ifeanyi Ejofor, stated that despite a Court order, the condition of his detention at the DSS continues to be harsh, degrading, and inhumane.
He lamented that he has solitarily confined to a very tiny cell 23 hours of the day without access to sunlight and any social interactions while any detainee who greets him during the single hour he is allowed outside his cell is promptly put in solitary confinement or transferred to maximum security as a punishment for exchanging mere greetings with him.
“Our Client, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, has instructed us to make the following information public. Despite a Court order to the contrary, the condition of his detention at the DSS headquarters in Abuja continues to be harsh, degrading, and inhumane.
“That he is solitarily confined to a very tiny cell 23 hours of the day without access to sunlight and any social interactions whatsoever. He believes that this is aimed at inflicting extreme emotional and mental distress on him and breaking him psychologically. He believes that this is aimed at inflicting extreme emotional and mental distress on him and breaking him psychologically. Because of this, detainees have resorted to avoiding him and exchanging salutations with him, not to talk of any other form of social interactions. That since the Nigerian government extraordinarily renditioned him, he has not been allowed a change of clothing; and his Jewish prayer shawls and other religious materials brought to him by his Counsel were rejected and returned.
“That the DSS has refused to replace his corrective glasses (lenses) which were smashed to smithereens by agents of the Nigerian government in the process of the violence they unleashed on him while abducting him in Kenya. This has led to a rapid deterioration of his sight.”
The IPOB leader also lamented that he is restricted to meeting with his Counsel in an atmosphere devoid of private discussions and denied perusal of legal documentation his Counsel brings to him for review.
He further alleged that his lawyers are being by the DSS, stating that Barrister Ejimakor was detained on the 17th July 2021 and interrogated for hours by the DSS when he came to visit to Kanu.
“Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, who witnessed the detention before being led away was very distressed and alarmed by this incident and he considers it a brazen act of intimidation of his Counsel.
“That he has, to date, been denied access to the British Consul despite her repeated requests to see him; and on the day of his last court appearance (10th November, 2021), the British Consul who was in Court to observe the proceedings was intimidated by DSS officers, who restricted her from coming close to Mazi Kanu.”
Fearing for his life, Kanu disclosed that the DSS has denied his repeated requests for an independent medical examination to determine the extent of damage done to his body by a suspected substance he may have been injected with during his abduction.
“He has reason to believe that the said injected substance is depleting the potassium content of his body, thus causing him constipation, a feeling of skipped heart beats, palpitations, fatigue, muscle weakness/spasms and numbness.
“That in the circumstance of the forgoing, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu continues to have a persistent and heightened feeling of portent threat to his overall well-being and safety within the DSS facility where he is currently detained.”
