Former National Security Adviser (NSA), Col. Mohammed Sambo Dasuki (retd), has dragged the Federal Government before ECOWAS Court in Abuja over his continued detention. He is also demanding payment of N500 million damages for alleged rights infringement.
This is even as a Federal High Court in Abuja yesterday ordered the government to produce him by February 16.
Dasuki is also urging the sub-regional court to order his release forthwith.
In the suit filed by his lawyer, Robert Emukpoeruo, the former NSA is urging the court to declare among others, that his continued detention in defiance of orders for his bail granted by three courts, and after fulfilling the bail conditions, was “unlawful, arbitrary and an egregious violation” of his human rights.
The applicant also urged the ECOWAS Court to hold that it was, “a most egregious violation of the treaty obligations” signed by Nigeria under and by virtue of its being a signatory to legal instruments, to have unlawfully detained him under a “de-humanizing condition” after he had been granted bail and met the conditions for his release.
Similarly, the former NSA would want the court to declare that the alleged invasion of his privacy, home and correspondence at his Abuja and Sokoto residences on July 16 and 17, 2015 and the “forceful and unlawful seizure” of his properties, “without any lawful order or warrant” constituted a gross violation of his fundamental rights and offended the country’s treaty obligations as a signatory to the listed legal instruments. (Daily Sun)
Dasuki’s Lawyer should know that Member nation’s internal legal system supersedes ECOWAS. This is just a litigation exercise to stimulate the brain. Dasuki and his cohorts would soon be sued by families of soldiers who died as a result of lack of weapons to combat Boko Haram.
All the soldiers that were dismissed as a result of agitations for better weapons and welfare should file suit against Dasuki and Co and claim damages.