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A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has ordered the Department of State Security (DSS) to pay 5 million Naira damages to IPOB lawyer, Barrister Maxwell Opara Chibuike, Esq, over harassment and violation his fundamental human rights during his visitation to the leader of Indigenous People Of Biafra, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu, at the DSS facility.

Barrister Maxwell had narrated his ordeal with the DSS on September 6, 2021 where he was nearly stripped naked before allowed to see his client Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.

Delivering on the judgment, Justice Zainab B. Abubakar of the Federal High Court declared and held that the act by the DSS was a flagrant violation of the rights of Barrister Maxwell Opara, thereby, awarded a cost of N5 million against DSS in the favour of the IPOB lawyer.

The Presiding judge also asked the DSS to published an unreserved apology to Barrister Maxwell Okpara Chibuike on national daily newspapers.

The IPOB lawyer had in his application sort, among others, a declaration that the actions of the men, operatives and officers under the command/commison of the Respondents on the 30 of August, 2021 during the Applicant’s visit to see his client in their detention facility, wherefore they commandeered the Applicant to a particular room within their
facility; for purposes of alleged bodily search, wherein they forcibly removed his belt, medicated eyeglasses, wedding ring, jacket and shoes, and subjected him to the humiliation of holding his trousers with his hands, wearing a bathroon slippers meant for awaiting trial inmates and exposed to Air Conditioner inflicted cold for 3 hour, amounts to a gross violation of the Applicant’s right to dignity of hurman person as guaranteed under Sections 34 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 (As amended) and Article 5 of the African Chater on Human and People Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap 9 Vol 1 FGN.

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