The Directorate of State Security, DSS may have decided
to delibrately forget ex militant, Selky
Torughedi in their dingy cell for trumped up charges over six months
after a federal high court in Abuja
ordered that he should be freed for want of evidence.
This indication is rife against the background of a
declaration made by the Director General of the DSS at the senate budget defense
a fortnight ago.
Asked by a member of the finance and appropriation committee
if it was indeed true that the DSS has a perchance for defying court orders by detaining
people in their cell even when the courts had ruled that such persons should be
set free, the DG denied the allegation saying unequivocally that the only
person they had in their detention in a contentious circumstance was Col, Sambo
dasuki (rtd).
Whereas, Selki Torughedi, an ex militant who was
arrested by the DSS sometime in June 2016 for alleged membership of the Niger
Delta Avengers (a self-styled group that claimed responsibilities for several
bombings and vandalization of oil pipelines in the Niger Delta region) was
acquitted by a federal high court in August 2016 but he is still being detained
by the DSS in their head office in Asokoro Abuja even without any fresh charge
or appeal against the ruling.
Apparently worried by this fresh development of seeming
perpetual detention of Selky Torughedi buoyed by the narratives of denial by
his abductors ( the secret police), counsel to the victim, Barrister, Emeka Uchegbulam
haschosen to pushed the frontiers of his
agitations for the enforcement of
the fundamental human rights and the release of his client, Selki Torughedi.
Emeka Uchegbulam, last week, wrote a passionate letter
to the acting President, Professor Yemi Osinbajo cataloguing the ordeal of Selki Torughedi in the hands of the DSS and
how the state security has refused to obey court orders acquitting his client nor appeal the judgment
over six months after the order was given.
The letter informed the acting president of the several
efforts that have made to compel the DSS to abide by the rule of law under
which aegis this present administration charted its way to power even as it
begs the learned acting president who is also a lawyer to use his good offices
to give honor to the order of the temple of justice so as correct the
impression being held by many Nigerians that the DSS is an organ of tyranny
being deployed by the Buhari administration.
In addition to the letter to the acting president, Uchegbulam
has also written to the house and senate committees on judiciary on Selki
Torughedi’s matter highlighting the bare faced impunity being exhibited by the
DSS to obey the order of a properly constituted federal court.
Uchegbulam said
he’ s convinced that the DSS wants Selki dead based on his findings that the
man is chained twenty four hours and seven days in a week even inside the cell.
He said Selki is underfed without proper medical attention and he is
interrogated almost every day with a threat to continue to hold him until he
implicates somebody.
It would be recalled since Selki was arrested by men of
the DSS on June 2016, his counsel, Emeka Uchegbulam has being in and out of the
court seeking for the freedom of his client.
When he got one vide the federal high court in Abuja,
the DSS defied the order, prompting the lawyer to approach the media, the
National human Rights commission, the Amnesty International and the United
Nations for intervention, yet the DSS would neither respond to the inquiries
from these independent organs on the matter, nor allow the decision of the court
of the land to prevail.
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