Nigeria’s Legal Hostages: A Continuing Crisis

Nigeria’s Legal Hostages: A Continuing Crisis

igeria was deeply entrenched in the prolonged transition to civil rule under General Ibrahim Babangida. The regime’s attempt…READ MORE…

to shift the timeline for this transition from 1992 to 1993 coincided with a planned meeting of the National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) in Ibadan, located in the Southwest of the country.

At the time, security agencies had infiltrated major university campuses with operatives disguised as students. The University of Ibadan was no exception. The unsuspecting NANS leadership was taken by surprise when the State Security Service (SSS) raided their meeting, detaining all members and transferring them to Kirikiri Maximum Security Prison in Lagos without any notification. Among those kidnapped were Mahmud Aminu, the then President of NANS, and notable figures like Bamidele Aturu, Naseer Kura, and Funso Omogbehin.

In an effort to legitimize the detainment, the regime issued a backdated order under the State Security (Detention of Persons) Decree No. 2 of 1984, effectively making these students hostages under the law. During a routine visit to Kirikiri Prison later that year to see other detainees, the Officer in Charge of Records discreetly informed me of the NANS leaders’ presence there—a full 10 days after they had gone missing. Had Mungo Park made that same journey, the history books might have recorded his “discovery” of the NANS leadership in Kirikiri.

The primary lawyer for such cases at that time was Kanmi Isola-Osobu, a brilliant Life Bencher and attorney for the famed musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti. Kanmi’s office, located opposite Adekunle Police Station in Yaba, was busy when I visited him one Monday afternoon. However, with his characteristic enthusiasm, he later shared that he had been occupied supporting the struggle for justice.

A judge named Nureini Abiodun Kessington, renowned for his unusual rulings, presided over the case. With remarkable ingenuity, Kessington swiftly concluded the students’ abduction and facilitated their release without causing significant disruption to their academic lives.

The activism against military rule then was largely fueled by two hopes: the belief that an end to military governance would also end such unlawful practices, and the steadfast resistance of courageous judges like Kessington. In retrospect, we may have been naïve about the persistent nature of power and its strategies. A quarter-century after the end of military rule, the practice of lawlessness continues unabated, and many courageous judges seem to have disappeared.

Politicians soon realized they could replicate the actions of military leaders. By January 2017, Audu Maikori, a lawyer with nearly 16 years of experience and the president of a successful start-up, Chocolate City Group, became a notable voice for the struggles in Southern Kaduna under the harsh rule of Governor Nasir el-Rufai.

On or around February 17, 2017, Audu was abducted by police from the Kaduna State Command while in Lagos. They initially detained him in a police cell in Abuja, then transferred him to Kaduna. A couple of days later, the police granted him bail.

Audu later learned that his abduction was connected to a tweet he posted regarding the crisis in Southern Kaduna. About two weeks after his release, during the Social Media Week in Lagos, Governor el-Rufai threatened to link Audu’s tweets to subsequent attacks on Fulanis, implying repercussions if such connections were established. Under these orders, the police re-arrested Audu, placing him in deplorable conditions within the State Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) facility. Audu had become a hostage under the law.

He subsequently sued el-Rufai and the police. On October 27, 2017, Judge John Tsoho of the Federal High Court ruled against Audu’s abduction from Lagos, determining that “a warrant of arrest issued by a Magistrate in Kaduna was not valid for execution in Lagos without being endorsed by a court in Lagos.” He awarded Audu N40 million in damages. Following reaffirmation from the Court of Appeal, el-Rufai appealed to the Supreme Court, asserting his right to arbitrarily detain Nigerian citizens.

Two years later, judges and magistrates began to craft legal principles that condoned the practice of hostage-taking. In a striking instance, police officers abducted Steven Kefason from Port Harcourt in May 2019 on el-Rufai’s orders without even bothering to obtain a warrant. After his abduction, he was secretly held in a cell in Mini Koro, Rivers State for a night before being brutally transported to Kaduna. During this three-day ordeal, he was denied food, communication, or even basic sanitation.

In Kaduna, Steven was subjected to harsh interrogation under the supervision of the governor’s legal adviser. His abduction was in retaliation for a tweet he posted near April 20, 2019, which criticized the local government chairman for hosting a birthday party while over 12,000 internally displaced persons lived in dire conditions. Despite the undisputed facts, el-Rufai ordered Steven’s abduction on charges of incitement. A month later, a Kaduna magistrate denied him bail, arguing that Steven had continued to post on social media further insulting the governor and the local council chair.

On February 27, 2020, Peter Mallong, a Federal High Court judge in Kaduna, denied Steven’s request for a judicial review regarding his abduction. In an extraordinary miscarriage of justice, he claimed to be bound by the magistrate’s earlier decision. Steven suffered as a hostage for over six months without recourse to justice, coming perilously close to losing his life. The injustice of this ruling demanded urgent resolution.

Peter Mallong passed away in July 2023 at the age of 60.

For those questioning how Nigeria arrived at the disgraceful state exemplified by the recent courtroom debacle in Ekiti involving Dele Farotimi, they can look to Peter Mallong, who had effectively written the manual for judicial complicity in turning citizens into legal hostages. This narrative carries broader implications.

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