Juliana Francis
A 20 years old lady has now spent six months in the Department
of State Services (DSS)’s detention for simply wearing Biafra-coloured clothing.
The girl’s distraught father, Mr. Godwin Okon Udoh,
has appealed to the human rights fighters to do everything within the ambit of
the law to free his daughter.
Godwin, who described his daughter, Joy Udoh, as an
activist, alleged that she was abducted by the DSS Operatives on 8th
November 2021, in Enugu State and since then, had not been charged to court.
Section 35 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, it provides that a person may be detained for no longer than
forty-eight (48) hours.
One may be detained for a longer period, but such
detention must be pursuant to an order of a court of competent jurisdiction.
This means that the DSS must have a warrant to be able to hold Joy for six
months and still counting.
Godwin said: “The Nigerian DSS has refused to allow
anyone to see her. They have denied both the lawyers and parents from visiting
her at the DSS’s headquarters in Abuja, where she was moved to. According to
the DSS, after their investigations on 22nd February 2022, they said the offense of my
daughter was that she wore a Biafra colour during her birthday and that she
also agitated for Biafra Freedom through her social media Facebook page. The
latest updates and confirmation from the lawyer advocating for the enforcement
of her Fundamental Rights was that my daughter is no more in DSS headquarters
Abuja, that she has been transferred to Wawa military detention facility in
Kainji, Niger State.”
The father noted that her continuous detention was Illegal
and the refusal to charge her to court was also an absolute and gross violation
of her fundamental rights.
