Barrister Ifeanyi Ejiofor, the lead counsel to the leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) has disclosed that operatives the Department Of State Services (DSS) forced the legal team to remove shoes, eyeglasses and other personal items during their visit to the later.
Barrister Ejiofor made the disclosure in a statement following the visit, saying DSS subjected them to inhuman treatment as if they are hardened criminals.
He said in the statement: “The routine visit to our client, Nnamdi Kanu, was conducted today, and it went successfully.
Our client, Nnamdi Kanu, specifically requested for his kind regards and compliments to be conveyed to millions of his teeming supporters and well-wishers.
“He is deeply appreciative of your unwavering solidarity/support.
“He didn’t hesitate in requesting that you all continue to pray without season, because it is positively impacting.
“However, today’s visit witnessed a fundamental change in the hitherto procedures conventionally adopted for conducting the visit.
We were initially unperturbed by the method now introduced by the DSS, but we feel compelled in the prevailing circumstance to make public our strange experience which borders on the improper treatment of lawyers in the course of conducting a court-ordered visit to their client who is undergoing trial.
“Lawyers on this visit were searched in a manner akin to a situation where hardened criminals are being searched for possible incriminating substance and object.
“They were traumatised not only because they were inhumanly treated as criminals on investigation, but the lawyers were further dehumanised after this embarrassing and unwarranted frisking, by being allowed to wear only slippers, after being divested of their shoes, reading glasses and writing materials, to visit their client.”
Decrying the subjection of lawyers to inhuman treatment in the course of conducting a legitimate visit, he said:
“Though, it readily called for immediate intervention of the Court seized of the matter because it is our right as clearly backed up by the Order of the Court, to visit Our Client on these specified dates and times, but subjecting lawyers to inhuman treatment in the course of conducting a legitimate visit is what we consider unjustified and unacceptable.
“We cannot be subjected to any form of intimidation/harassment during subsequent visits to Our Client, because the alien style is only targeted at imputing fear in us, which action we shall resist within the confines of extant laws.
“We shall get this infraction addressed by the Court in the fullness of time, as processes incidental thereto has been promptly initiated.”