A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja has dismissed a motion filed by the self-acclaimed leader of the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, seeking an order directing the Director-General (DG) of the Department of States Services (DSS) to give oral evidence on the state of his health.
The trial Judge, Justice Taiwo Taiwo, in ruling delivered on Wednesday, held that fundamental rights cases are “sui generis” (special cases), which mode of commencement is by way of affidavit evidence as prescribed under Order 2, Rule 2 of the Fundamental Human Right Enforcement Procedure Rules, 2009.
The Judge held that even though, there were various modes of commencement of action, including fundamental right cases, the POB leader chose to commence his, “under the Fundamental Right Enforcement Procedure Rules that stipulates affidavit evidence.”
Justice Taiwo held that after carefully perusing all the affidavits of the applicant and the respondents before him, he was of the view that there were no irreconcilable conflicts in the affidavits and declined to grant Kanu’s application.
Consequently, Justice Taiwo dismissed Kanu’s application and adjourned the matter till April 13, 2022, for the hearing of the substantive application.
The Judge had, on March 7, fixed Wednesday for ruling on Kanu’s application, filed on his behalf by his counsel, Maxwell Okpara, who, in the application, prayed the court to direct the D-G DSS and Kanu to appear before it to give oral evidence regarding the health condition of the IPOB leader.
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Kanu had filed a fundamental human rights enforcement suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/1585/2021with the D-G of DSS, the DSS the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) as 1st to 3rd respondents respectively.
Opara alleged in the suit that the health of his client was deteriorating in the DSS custody, among other prayers.
He had told the court at the last hearing on the matter that, there were conflicts in the counter affidavit filed by the DSS and that only oral evidence of the DSS boss and Kanu could clarify the issue.
“We want to call Kanu and Director General of DSS to testify,” he said.
But the DSS, through its counsel, Idowu Awo, disagreed with Opara and argued that while the judge had powers to call oral evidence of parties, Kanu’s lawyer had not shown how the doctors attending to his client were doing “quack” work.
He further argued that merely stating that the medical doctors assigned to attend to Kanu were quacks did not amount to conflict.
“It is important to note that the applicant has not denied the above assertion by the respondents neither has he shown, by material evidence that the listed medical practitioners are quacks,” he said and prayed the court to discountenance the application.
Also in the counter affidavit dated February 24, Awo argued that it was common knowledge that Kanu was currently standing trial on a 15-count charge bothering on terrorism before a sister court.
He said that refusal to grant the application would not prejudice Kanu’s case in any way.
The AGF’s lawyer, Simon Enoch, also corroborated Awo’s submission and added that there was no material conflict in the affidavits of fact submitted before the court.
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Ill-health: Court dismisses Nnamdi Kanu’s request for DSS boss to give oral evidence
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