Oladimeji Ramon
Some legal practitioners in the country have condemned the continued detention of the Abuja Bureau Chief of The Independent Newspapers, Tony Ezimako, by the Department of State Services.
Three lawyers, who spoke with our correspondent on Monday, said Ezimako’s continued detention bordered on illegality as it was against the provisions of the constitution.
Ezimako was reportedly arrested by the DSS over an investigative report he published on how the Federal Government paid ransom to secure the release of some of the abducted Chibok girls.
The DSS was said to have been holding him for about five days, ignoring the call for his release from various quarters, including the Nigeria Union of Journalists.
Speaking in a telephone interview with our correspondent on Monday, activist Lagos-based lawyer, Mr. Jiti Ogunye, pointed out at least three constitutional provisions that were being trampled upon by the DSS with his continued detention of Ezimako.
Ogunye said, “I join Nigerians in condemning the arrest of the Abuja Bureau Chief of The Independent Newspapers by the DSS. Of course, from the report of one of the editors of the journalist concerned, the DSS reportedly is insisting on the journalist divulging his source of information for the story that the newspaper ran on the payment of ransom to Boko Haram to secure the freedom of some of the Chibok girls. “Now, if that report is true, then such insistence in our view is against the provisions of the constitution.
“Secondly, every Nigerian, including journalists, has a right to disseminate and receive information without let or hindrance. This is also a constitutional right, which allows Nigerians to establish media organisations. So, arresting the journalist is also a violation of his constitutionally-guaranteed right to freedom of expression and therefore, we have no equivocation in calling for the release of the journalist.
“Thirdly, what the DSS has done is also a violation of Section 35 of the constitution, which guarantees the right to personal liberty and which further provides that every person who is detained shall be brought before a court within a reasonable time. And Section 35(5) has defined that reasonable time to be that the person must be brought before the court within 24 hours or 48 hours as the case may be.
“So, the journalist detention has become unlawful.”
Another activist lawyer, Mr. Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa, corroborated Ogunye’s argument, describing the journalist’s continued detention as an illegality.
Adegboruwa said, “…If you have arrested a journalist and you think that the story or the information he has published is wrong, you can file a case against him for libel, for him to come and prove the veracity of his story in court. But it is wrong for government to seek to intimidate the media especially given the cooperation the current government enjoyed from the media while it was in opposition.There is no reason at all, under our laws, to keep him in custody beyond 24 hours.
Also speaking, the Vice-President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Mr. Monday Ubani, equally condemned Ezimako’s continued detention.
He said, “…They have been keeping him there for about five days, I don’t think that is what our law says. Our law provides specific time within which to arraign a suspect by charging him to court. If you feel that somebody has committed a crime, the specific time within which you are to charge the person to court is 24 or 48 hours. But what we do here is that we arrest an accused person and then begin to forcefully extract a confessional statement and in that process, keep the person beyond the time limit prescribed by law because you have not done your investigation very well.”
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