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The circumstances of Sowore's release confirmed Rambo's position that the government intended to subject Sowore to the same treatment as Dasuki. Dasuki was granted bail 4 years ago. But the DSS rearrested him and held him indefinitely. Based on our analysis, we saw similar intentions for Sowore. It was therefore accurate to predict that "Sowore may not be released till end of Buhari's second term".  The fact that he was ultimately released yesterday did not contradict that prediction. In fact, releasing him along Dasuki confirms our instinct. The prediction was not to give a date for his release, but rather to tell you the principles guiding the thoughts of the people involved. Another aspect of Rambo's analysis that turned out accurate was the fact that Rambo stated that the outcome of Sowore's case would not depend on the normal application of the law. Rambo said we should look beyond the law in order to assess the outcome. In fact, the circumstances of his release confirmed that. He was not released in normal flow of law. It was just one arbitrary act of government reversing another arbitrary act of the same government. Now, watch out for the following tricks from government: By emphasizing that they could still appeal against the Court order granting him bail and by emphasizing that Sowore must keep to the terms of his bail, the government is actually warning the judge not to vary the terms of bail again. And if the terms of bail are not varied, that means that Sowore cannot travel out of Abuja until the case is over. That may mean that he cannot see his children. That means that he will not address any gathering till the case is over. And when will the case be over? Not likely before the end of Buhari's second term. So, they have silenced him effectively. If he doesn't comply with the terns of bail, his bail will be revoked and he will be detained with a court order and nobody may accuse the government. So, Sowore's rights are still in danger. But you may not know that. To understand what is going on, you need to think deeply and smartly. What we ought to focus attention on is the various subtle ways the government is resisting the Court. We knew that Sowore's case was calculatedly meant for Dasuki treatment. And when the demand for Sowore's release came, they released Dasuki along.

The Due Process Advocates Foundation (DPA) acknowledges that today, amidst blistering international pressure, the government of Mohammadu Buhari, acting through its Attorney General, Mr. Abubakar Malami, ordered the release of Omoyele Sowore and Gambo Dasuki, who have both been in unlawful indefinite detention. In ordering their release, the government based its order on the various orders of Nigerian courts that had granted bail to these men. While we welcome the release of the two men as serving the purpose of justice, we also decry the shameful conduct of the Nigerian Government in the continued detention of these men despite court orders that mandated their release. It is particularly remarkable that these men are being released on no other conditions than those already imposed by court. It raises the question therefore as to the basis for detaining them after courts had ordered their release. Indeed, what the directive of Mr. Malami has confirmed is the sickening belief on the part of this Government that no court order can take effect without further approval by the executive arm of government. The action of the government, as shown in Mr. Malami's needless intervention today, is a confirmation of the ugly truth, which is that Buhari's government will go down in history as the most dictatorial government in the time of democracy. It is an admission that court orders were routinely ignored and the courts rendered powerless. It is also an admission that this government has been callous and most reckless as regards human rights and rule of law. It is further an admission that it will be dangerous for Nigerians or the world to trust Buhari's administration on rule of law. The world must not take the release of the two men as a genuine sign that this administration is willing to change. On the contrary, what we saw is a syndical deception calculated to mislead the world and to lure the seekers of justice into complacency or false sense of victory. The fact remains that thousands of innocent Nigerians are in various detentions all contrary to rule of law and due process. It is a dangerous tokenism to release a few while many are left to languish in detentions. The fact is that in the same DSS cells that held Sowore for months and Dasuki for years, DSS is holding hundreds of innocent people contrary to law and due process. We must therefore continue to demand for justice from Buhari's government. Let our next step be to demand for the government to open the gates to various secret detention places in Nigeria whether these detention centers are run by DSS, the police or other security or law enforcement agencies. Every detention of a person in Nigeria must be brought under the control of the judiciary, a judiciary that must be free from corruption and which shall enjoy independence from the executive. Second, we must shine the light on the various processes through which the security forces seek to justify abusive detentions. As we write, DPA has come across overwhelming evidence of how the Nigerian police fabricated criminal charges against innocent citizens to justify detentions and how judges are being induced to play along. In the cases of Sowore and Dasuki, things were made a bit easy because the judges did not play along. But we have cases in which the judges play a role in a corrupt scheme to abuse the rights of citizens. These also should be practices to which the seekers of justice must direct their protests. Rather than rest and assume it is over, Nigerians and the world must understand that the release of Dasuki and Sowore is on the beginning, the late beginning, of the fight for justice against an administration that has no regard for law, liberty and basic freedoms. Rather than fold our tents and retreat, we must strengthen and fortify ourselves for further resistance to repression and dangerous autocracy. By DPA Administration. December 24, 2019

The Federal High Court sitting in Abuja yesterday made a profound ruling when it held that prostitution is not a crime under Nigerian law.

Relying on Section 37, Chapter 4, of the Constitution, Hon. Justice Binta Murtala Nyako delivered the judgment in a case filed by Lawyers Alert on behalf of one Constance Nkwocha &15 Ors V.  Min. of FCT & 5 Ors. The judge held that sex work is not a criminal offence in Nigeria, and that it is a violation  of Section 37 rights of a female sex worker for any security official to arrest her for having sex for commercial purpose. To show the seriousness of the matter, the judge awarded damages against the Respondents and in favour of the Applicants in the sum of N1.6 Million. To fully understand the meaning and implications of this judgment, DPA will obtain a copy of the judgment for a full study of it. DPA may appeal that judgment for the purpose of ultimately getting the Supreme Court of Nigeria to pronounce on the matter in order to give it the binding power over all courts in Nigeria and truly make it a part of the law of the land.

The year 2019 is destined to end as it started  - a big ironical casualty in the legal profession. It started with the dramatic fall from grace of Walter Onoghen, the then Chief Justice of Nigeria. And it ends with the arrest and detention of Mohammed Adoke, former Attorney General of Nigeria, by interpol in Dubai for one month, and his eventual extradition to Nigeria, followed by arrest at the airport by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission.

What the stories of Onoghen and Adoke have in common is not only the fact that they share the theme of an elephant that ended up in a rabbit cage. The respective stories of the two men reflect the peculiarity of the Nigerian society.

Both Onoghen and Adoke will claim to be victims of an unjust and unfair legal and judicial systems. But both had opportunities to make the same legal and judicial systems fairer and more just. And both failed largely to do so. They thus ended up victims of their own negligence.

This is not the first time we see such victims of self in Nigeria. Indeed, they are abundant in Nigeria. Abba Moro was the Minister of Interior before he ended up remanded in Kuje prison. The inmates and the warders, upon sighting him, were very happy to welcome him to the type of prison he wanted for Nigeria while he was the Minister in Charge of prisons. At that moment, he wished he had reformed the prison system when he had the opportunity. Tafa Balogun, a former Inspector General of Police, was brutalized by junior police officers using the same brutality tactics that Tafa Balogun allowed when he was the head of the police force.

Orji Uzor Kalu and other ex-Governors are in prison at the moment. Senators, Ministers and even serving Governors go to visit them in prison. They are all lamenting privately the unjust legal system. Yet, none is doing anything to change the situation for the future. The lesson is clear. True leaders should seek to better the future. But our leaders only seek to better the past, which is impossible. We wish Mohammed Adoke peaceful enjoyment of the system of criminal justice he wished for others.

We expect up to 100 inmates to be freed today and tomorrow in Kuje Prison alone. Other prisons in the Abuja area will be receiving similar visits. They are concentrating on cases of inmates who have not been to courts in two years and those who have been awaiting trial for many years. In October of this year, DPA sent out two petitions demanding the review of many cases of inmates who have been unjustly held in the prisons and the Abattoir police detention center. In response to DPA petitions, on November 4th and 5th, the judges went to Abattoir and freed or evacuated over 600 detainees. And today, they are extending that to the prisons.   We are happy for this development. The detention of the leader of DPA, Emeka Ugwuonye, Esquire, in Abattoir and Kuje has not been without a great benefit. DPA shall continue to press for justice to many people who have been unjustly detained. In light of this development, DPA will suspend the next round of petitions which are aimed at the judiciary.

As you know, DPA has been helping prisoners for sometime now. We've done it in Keffi. We did it in Lagos, Badagry. We did it in Kuje. Our Enugu State members are doing it in Enugu tomorrow. Since our Founder has been in Kuje prison, we have helped Kuje inmates in many ways - fed them, organized sporting competition, fashion competition, free legal representations for then, etc. The Founder has done so much to help a lot of inmates. For some strategic reasons, we have not publicized our charitable activities in Kuje prison.   Now,  DPA wants to feed 1000 Kuje Prison inmates on the Christmas Day. It will cost N400 to feed each inmate. So, we need to raise N400k. This figure is easy for us to raise if everybody here can donate N500 today. You are welcome to donate more than N500. But indeed your N500 will be enough. Don't be left out of the important gesture.   Send your N500 to: DPA INT'L FOUNDATION- LEGAL DEFENCE ZENITH BANK, NO.1015702400

  Ghana's Supreme Court just rendered a far reaching but straightforward judgment, declaring that the 48 hours allowed the police to detain a person without court order shall now include weekends, holidays and even periods of civil unrest. A similar development in Nigeria will significantly improve the human rights situation in Nigeria, which is currently deplorable. The Nigerian police organizations have abused the constitution by always excluding weekends and public holidays in the computation of the 48-hour period, similarly provided for in the Nigerian constitution. The effect of this wrong computation method is that it became an instrument of corruption and abuse. The police will prefer to arrest people on Fridays so they can detain them over the weekend without consequences. For instance, in this Christmas period, assuming that Nigerian Government declares Friday 27th December a public holiday, Nigerian police can arrest a person on Tuesday, 24th December 2019 and detain him till Friday, 3rd January, 2020, and the period of such detention will be calculated as not exceeding the 48-hour period of discretionary police detention. The absurdity and injustice in such a system is glaring and highly intolerable. DPA has for some time now been seeking for ways to challenge that unjust practice. The aforementioned development in Ghana will help DPA in that it sets a precedent of how another country on the same developmental plain and within the same geopolitical zone as Nigeria has handled the same problem. DPA will be instructing its legal team to file an action in Nigerian courts by January of 2020 to obtain a judicial interpretation of the relevant constitutional provision. We shall be setting up a team of lawyers to study the Ghanaian case very closely and make recommendations to our litigation team.   DISCLAIMER: The Due Process Advocates Foundation (DPA) is an international human rights and humanitarian organization, founded by Ephraim  Emeka Ugwuonye

This is exactly the difference between the method used in the case of Emeka Ugwuonye and that of Omoyele Sowore. The reason people are protesting over Sowore more than they do in Emeka's case is because the DSS did not bother to get the judge to join them in abusing Sowore or to do so through the court. And this is where the Police Commissioner for Abuja, Mr. Bala Ciroma, showed more cunning. The police knew that if they detained Emeka without a court order, there would be consequences. So, they had to do it the 'smart' way, which was to get a judge that would agree to do them a favor. They tried three times before they got a judge that was willing to work with them. The work of the judge was to deny Emeka bail. The calculation was simple: to deny Emeka bail, cause him to go on appeal over bail and at the least, he would spend 3 months in detention. To make sure this would work, they had to allege a capital offence so that the deal with the judge would not look obvious. But they miscalculated so badly. Their entire assumption was that detaining Emeka in prison would hurt him so badly and ultimately force him to give up the fight. What they did not know was that the method they used would trigger an unexpected consequence. That consequence was that it showed Emeka that the Nigerian police commanders like Ciroma had been framing up people to get rid of them, and that the courts are involved in the racket. And thousands have suffered even loss of life from such abuses, aided by courts. There is no better place to study and track these abuses than from within the walls of the prison. So detaining Emeka Ugwuonye in Abattoir was like giving DPA a desk in Abattoir, and as you could see, just about one year after his detention in Abattoir, Abattoir is no more. Today, nobody will be detained in Abattoir for more than one month because DPA will pressure the office of the Chief Judge to visit Abattoir at least once a month. And we will tell the Chief Judge how the police hide detainees from judges and human rights agencies. Also, they have started giving some food to the detainees because DPA exposed how the police embezzled the money allocated for feeding of detainees and thereby causing deaths by starvation. Now, detaining Emeka Ugwuonye in prison is like giving DPA a desk in the prison. Can you imagine the reforms in our justice system that will result from that? Emeka did not have to rush to come out, as there is more to gain from spending up to a year there. This is the message we have been trying to pass on to those of our members who constantly lamented the detention of our Founder. Having said that, it is time for him to come out and steps can now being taken to achieve that. The lesson we have learned, which most people don't have yet is that judicial corruption is the greatest threat to liberty and human rights in Nigeria. It doesn't matter what the law says about your rights, as long as there are judges that can be bought with a bowl of porridge, those rights mean nothing. Therefore, DPA shall target some of its effort at judicial corruption and we have done a lot of work, yet to be published. The Nigeria prisons are the great unknown about this country. We now believe that the detention of our leader is a big blessing in disguise. Nigerian judges are closing their eyes and sending underaged people to prison just because the police suspected them of belonging to groups - IPOB, Shiites, cults, etc. So, back to the comparison: what would have happened if Justice Ojukwu had been induced to deny Sowore bail? What would have happened if the DSS Director had paid the judge a visit and requested a favor, and the favor being to deny him bail? DSS did not bother because of two things: (1) they assumed that once treason was mentioned, bail would be denied or (2) they are so arrogant that they felt they could detain Sowore regardless of what the court says. In this regard, the police were smarter. They figured a way to have Emeka in detention without triggering public outcry. But they still made a big mistake.  

DPA is faced with a delicate problem right now. A lady met a man here in DPA forum. Because she met him here, she assumed he would be a good man that would respect his wife. But two days after their traditional marriage, he started beating her and never stopped. Meanwhile they both remained members of this forum. Apart from the beating, he abused her in every other way imaginable. The beating lasted through a pregnancy period. They had one child, which they lost. The woman was employed at the time they met and she worked throughout the period until she resigned after giving birth to their child. But the man never worked even till today. All the above were what the woman told us. So let us assume that she might have exaggerated the story or lied against him. But I have something in my hand right now which cannot be a lie. I have two marriage certificates showing that the man had registry marriage with another woman and still had another registry marriage with this DPA lady. He never even bothered to get a divorce from the first marriage. That is bigamy.  And we have the two certificates in our hand. Because this man is a DPA forum member (not a registered member), we are going to approach him carefully. We will talk with him before we determine how to teach him some lessons. For a DPA man to do this is a big disgrace.

The court found that Orji Uzor Kalu (OUK) embezzled 7.3 billion. That is the amount of public fund the court said he embezzled. The court then ordered for one (only one) of OUK businesses (SLOK HOLDING) to be liquidated and the proceeds of the liquidation sale forfeited to the Federal Government, and nothing more. You don't really need to be a lawyer to challenge the reasoning behind such judgment. Now, let's consider the following questions that the court ignored: (1) How much will SLOK be worth after it has been liquidated? What is the fair market value of its assets? Will it be exactly 7.3 billion or will it be more or less? (2) If it is more (like 10 billion), what happens to the 2.7 billion excess? And if it is less (like 5 billion) what happens to the 2.3 billion deficit? (3) So, does it not mean that after the liquidation of SLOK, there has to be an accounting in order to determine whether the proceeds of the liquidation sale is more or less than the 7.3 billion? (4) Without providing for an accounting to be done as to the value of SLOK, it means that the court has awarded an unknown and unknowable amount of money (the proceeds of  the sale of SLOK) against a known amount of embezzled funds (7.3 billion). (5) Is OUK the only shareholder of SLOK? If even his wife or mother holds even 1% share in SLOK, the court can only sell the shares of OUK, and not the entire company. In other words, the court cannot sell anything in SLOK that doesn't belong to OUK. (6) Based on that flawed judgment, EFCC has sealed off the Sun Newspaper, which is an entity on its own. There are many questions: (a) Is the Sun Newspaper wholly owned by SLOK and is therefore covered by the judgment? (b) If anybody else, including OUK in his personal capacity, owns even 1% of the shares of Sun Newspaper, then the judgment does not cover the Sun Newspaper company, but only the shares of SLOK in the Sun can be attached. So, you can't be sealing the company. This is because the court limited the judgment to SLOK. (c) EFCC knows that OUK is going on appeal. The judgment is only one week old. The judgment has not even been enrolled and the EFCC is wasting effort even though it knows there will be an order of stay. Why the gragra? (d) Of all the businesses controlled by OUK, why is his newspaper the first to seal? Is it not to prevent him from using his paper to counter some of the lies peddled against him? (7) Based on the judgment, EFCC is sealing the houses of OUK. But the order is limited to the interest of SLOK. Unless those houses can be said to be owned by SLOK, they cannot be sealed based on the judgment because the judgment did not send them after the assets of OUK, but rather the assets of SLOK. The judgment of Justice Idris is a travesty and it will be set aside on appeal for many reasons.