Enugu's Hausa community laments detention of of its member for a year without trial

MEMBERS of the Hausa community in Enugu have raised the alarm about the unlawful detention of one of their members for over a year after he was arrested by the Department of State Security (DSS) in 2015 and has been held since without trial.

 

Abdullahi Shuaibu, alias IBB, was taken into custody by the DSS on August 19, 2015 and had not been released since. Human rights lawyer Olu Omotayo of the Civil Rights Realisation and Advancement Network, who is spearheading efforts by the northern community to free Mr Shuaibu, said the 25-year-old man had not been charged to court for any offence since his incarceration.

 

Before his arrest, Mr Shuaibu was a wholesale seller of goats at the New Artisan market, Enugu. It was gathered that he represented the goat sellers association before he was picked up by DSS operatives over an unspecified matter.

 

Mr Shuaibu’s father, 74-year-old Pa Abdullahi Shuaibu, from Dambam in Bauchi State, said the DSS had not levelled any clear allegations against his son. He added that the leaders of the New Artisan market traders association, and the northern community in Enugu, had tried, unsuccessfully, to get his son released from the custody of the DSS.

 

Pa Abdullahi, who said he had lived for 42 years in Enugu before returning to Bauchi a few years ago, stated that his son and his siblings were born in Enugu, hence their fluency in the Igbo language. Already, the Enugu Northern community has petitioned the DSS, demanding Mr Shuaibu’s immediate release.

 

Their letter, forwarded to the director of the Enugu State chapter of the DSS, was dated September 6, 2016, and signed by their lawyer, Mr Omotayo. In the letter, Mr Omotayo described Mr Shuaibu’s detention as unlawful.

 

“We submit that it is not only unlawful but also unconstitutional to detain a citizen of this country in the cell of a security agency for over a year without trial,” Mr Omotayo added.