A federal high court in Abuja has issued a warning to Adeola Ajayi, the director-general of the Department of State Services (DSS), regarding the disobedience of court-ordered visitations for Nnamdi Kanu.
Kanu, the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), has been in DSS custody since his re-arrest in Kenya and extradition to Nigeria in 2021.
He is facing trial on a seven-count charge related to treasonable felony.
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Kanu’s legal team has repeatedly accused the DSS of preventing them from accessing their client.
The court had mandated that the DSS must grant Kanu access to his lawyers, with a maximum of five visitors permitted on each visiting day.
On Friday, the registrar of the federal high court issued a “form 48 notice of consequences of disobedience to the order of court” against the DSS director-general.
This notice warned that failure to comply with the court-ordered visitations could result in a contempt of court charge, potentially leading to imprisonment.
“Take notice that unless you obey the directions contained in this order (see overleaf) — by allowing the applicant’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 notice reads.
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In a statement on Friday, Aloy Ejimakor, counsel for the IPOB leader, stated that if Ajayi disobeys the court order, the defense team will file contempt charges against him.
“This notice is necessitated by the repeated disobedience of the court-ordered visitation of Mazi Kanu by the newly appointed Director-General of the State Security Services (Mr. Adeola Oluwatosin Ajayi), who has, for almost a month, not allowed Mazi Kanu’s lawyers to visit him,” the statement reads.
“To be clear, this notice is a quasi-criminal judicial process that forewarns any person disobeying a court order of the penal consequences of such misconduct.
‘Therefore, if the Director-General of DSS persists on this ignoble path, he will leave us with no other option than to commence vigorous contempt proceedings against him.”
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