The Court of Appeal has affirmed the judgment of the Enugu State High Court which declared the arrest and detention of a member of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Stephen Egwuatu by the Department of State Services (DSS) as unlawful and a vicious violation of his fundamental rights.<\/p>\n
The Enugu State High Court had given the order, on July 4 2023, in Suit No. E\/37\/2022 and awarded a cost of N5 million against the secret police.<\/p>\n
But the DSS through the Enugu State Ministry of Justice, in Appeal No. CA\/E\/2023: State Security Service VS. Stephen Egwuatu, challenged the decision of the Lower Court.<\/p>\n
However, in a landmark and unanimous judgment read by the Hon. Justice Abdul-Azeez Waziri (JCA), the Appellate Court upheld the judgment of the High Court and reaffirmed the punitive cost awarded against the DSS.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the verdict, lawyer to IPOB and human rights activist, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, said the judiciary has, again, proved to be the last hope of the oppressed.<\/p>\n
He said, “We give all glory and adoration to God Almighty for this resounding victory. Justice has once again prevailed. The enforcement of this judgment will be pursued to its fullest extent.<\/p>\n
“It is pertinent to note that Stephen was only 12 years at the time of his arrest and detention. Although he was arrested on November 8 2021 and released on November 11, 2021, the court strongly condemned the actions of the DSS, in the unlawful arrest and detention of an innocent minor, and consequently awarded a cost of N5 million against the DSS.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Court of Appeal has affirmed the judgment of the Enugu State High Court which declared the arrest and detention of a member of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Stephen Egwuatu by the Department of State Services (DSS) as unlawful and a vicious violation of his fundamental rights. The Enugu State High Court had […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":91391,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-93432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93432","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=93432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/91391"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=93432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=93432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=93432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}