TheCable

Mojirayo Ogunlana-Nkanga, a lawyer, has asked the Department of State Services (DSS) to release Ahmad Sakwaya and Garba Alhassan who have been in the agency’s detention for 460 days without trial.

In a letter dated October 24, addressed to the director-general, Ogunlana-Nkanga said her clients, who are car sales agents, were arrested on July 15, 2017, by DSS operatives over a “business transaction with a terrorist”.

She said Ahmad and Garba had a transaction with one Malla Lawan, a car dealer, who had been arrested by the agency on the suspicion of being a terrorist.

Ogunlana-Nkanga demanded that the detainees be released within seven days or she would institute legal action against the DSS.

“Mr Ahmad’s wife, Hajiya Hassana Ahmed Mohammed, informed us that on the said 15th of July 2017, your office arrested only Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Garba over the funds they both received from Malla during the course of their legitimate business as known car sales agents. Consequently, your officers seized two Toyota Sienna cars belonging to Mr. Garba,” she wrote.

“Our clients also informed us that your office has detained Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Garba at the SSS headquarters in Abuja for over one year and three months without trial. To this day, both Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Garba have not been seen, nor heard from, nor had any access to family, counsel, and medical attention.

“The act of subjecting Mr. Ahmad and Mr. Garba to continuous detention, concealing of their fate and whereabouts from their wives and children, depriving them of liberty and placing them outside the protection of law for over four hundred and fifty days (460) is a breach of their rights not to be subjected to enforced disappearance as guaranteed by Article 1 of the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance and amounts to gross impunity and violation of their rights above mentioned.

“In the light of the above, we hereby request that you grant immediate access to counsel and the families of Ahmad Mohammed Sakwaya and Garba Alhassan within the next twenty-four (24) hours. Furthermore, it is our instruction to demand and we hereby demand the immediate and unconditional release of Mr. Ahmad Mohammed Sakwaya and Garba Alhassan from your custody within seven (7) days. In the event that you fail to release them, we shall be compelled to proceed to court to institute legal action against your office.”