Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor
One of the defining moments of the just-concluded Annual General Conference of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) was the intense scrutiny of gross human rights violations taking place in two of Nigeria’s most notorious detention facilities,Wawa Barracks in Niger State and the Tiger Base of the Imo State Police Command.
At the conference, senior security officials were invited to respond to widespread concerns regarding the illegal detention of citizens,many held without charge and without access to legal counsel. Predictably, these officials delivered a carefully scripted narrative, assuring both the Bar and the general public that detainees at Wawa Barracks and Tiger Base have unhindered access to their lawyers whenever such access is requested.
But this narrative is a carefully woven falsehood.
Immediately following the conference, we initiated formal procedures to obtain long-overdue approval for a legal visit to Wawa Barracks, where several of our clients have been held incommunicado ,some for more than eight years without charge, without trial, and without any access to the outside world.
Ironically, some of these detainees are citizens whose only “offence” was travelling from Ebonyi to Abuja in 2021 to witness the trial of Nnamdi Kanu. No charges. No court appearances. Just indefinite incarceration.
Earlier this year, a mainstream media outlet published a detailed list of detainees unlawfully held at Wawa Barracks. That list prominently included the names of our clients.
Despite the grand assurances delivered by Army and DSS representatives at the NBA Conference, our request for a legal visit has not been granted. No explanation has been offered. No indication has been given that access will ever be allowed. The much-heralded rhetoric of “strict adherence to human rights” espoused at the conference now rings hollow ,a mere public relations exercise designed to placate a hall full of hopeful legal professionals.
Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, captured the collective frustration when he confronted the officials directly, declaring that their supposed commitment to national security and fundamental rights was nothing more than “lies wrapped in officialdom.”
Sadly, events since the conference continue to prove him right.
Less than two weeks after the NBA gathering, Tiger Base in Owerri remains a hotbed of unlawful detentions, enforced disappearances, and unaccountable power. Just days ago, a lawyer,invigorated by the conference’s assurances attempted to secure the release of a client who has been held there without charge for over three years. Not only was he denied access to the facility, but he was also forcibly chased away by armed officers.
This is not an isolated incident. For decades, Wawa Barracks and Tiger Base have featured prominently in both local and international human rights reports as dungeons of despair facilities where the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and binding international conventions are routinely violated. The right to liberty, the right to a fair hearing, and the right to legal representation are treated not as inalienable rights, but as privileges granted or denied at the whim of security operatives.
Let us now put the questions squarely before those security officials who stood before the Nigerian Bar and made those promises:
Have you briefed the Inspector-General of Police and the Commissioner of Police, Imo State, on the concerns and resolutions raised by Nigerian lawyers?Has any directive been issued to halt the ongoing violations at Tiger Base?
Has the Army High Command taken any concrete steps to allow legal access to Wawa Barracks?
If the answer to these questions is no, then the Nigerian people and indeed the international community can only conclude that what we witnessed in Enugu was nothing more than a choreographed deception.
As legal practitioners and officers of the court, we cannot afford to remain silent while innocent citizens are consigned to indefinite imprisonment in facilities operating outside the bounds of law and accountability. Silence in the face of injustice is complicity. The world is watching. History is taking notes.
A day of reckoning will surely come—when those who presided over these violations will be held accountable. Justice may be delayed, but it cannot, and will not, be denied.
Sir Ifeanyi Ejiofor, Esq. (KSC) Is a renowned human rights lawyer and lead counsel of Indigenous People of Biafara IPOB
