Ejiofor said that Kanu is suffering from gastrointestinal illness
The Coalition of South-East Youth Leaders (COSEYL), says the refusal of the Nigerian government to grant the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu access to medical treatment is part of the plan to kill him.
Ifeanyi Ejiofor, counsel for the IPOB leader, raised the alarm on Monday that Kanu was seriously ill and that the Department of State Services (DSS) had denied him access to his personal doctor and medication.
Ejiofor said that Kanu is suffering from gastrointestinal illness, which necessitates and requires that he sees his doctor often for proper medication as ordered by the court of law.
“It is worrisome that he is not even allowed to use mere antacids to reduce the pain as prescribed by his physician,” he said.
But COSEYL, the apex socio-political youth group in the South-East in a statement on Wednesday, condemned the action of the DSS.
It noted that a law enforcement agency should not be seen as a lawbreaker, adding that such impunity encourages lawlessness.
In the statement signed by its President General, Goodluck Ibem, the group said, “It is very alarming that the DSS that is a creation of the law that derives her powers from the law, will so blatantly disobey a court order preventing Nnamdi Kanu free access to his medical doctor for treatment.
“If the DSS has no regard and respect for court orders,” it queried, “from where did they derive their powers to detain him? Are they trying to tell Nigerians that they are detaining him without the order of the court?”
“We are asking these pertinent questions because the actions of DSS to disobey court orders goes a long way to tell us that they are detaining Nnamdi Kanu by their own order and not by the order of the court.
“The DSS has no right or powers to determine which court order to obey and the ones not to obey. They are mandated by law to obey all court orders.
“Maybe we need to remind the DSS that we are in a democratic system of government where people’s fundamental human rights and privileges must be respected to the letter. The intentional disobedience of court orders by DSS is an insult to our hard-earned democracy and we demand that it must stop forthwith.
“We call on the DSS to immediately allow Mazi Nnamdi Kanu free access to his medical doctors and family members as directed by the court. The actions of the DSS are putting our hard-earned democracy in great danger.
“When a goat is opening the pot of soup to steal from it, the kid of the goat watches and learns from the mother. The DSS is teaching Nigerians how to disobey the law and court orders. If all Nigerians start disobeying the law and court orders like the DSS is teaching Nigerians to do, anarchy will set in and there will be no country to call our own.”