The Abuja division of the Federal High Court has adjourned to May 22, 2023 hearing on the application by the detained leader of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu, seeking an order of mandamus to compel the Department of State Services (DSS) to allow him have unhindered access to his medical doctor.
Justice Binta Nyako, who announced that adjournment, yesterday, also warned parties in the case against any form of ploy to truncate the proceedings.
The adjournment was at the instance of counsel to the Department of State Services (DSS), Idowu Awo, who asked for more time to enable him study the counter affidavit served on him by Kanu’s legal team. The 15-paragraph counter affidavit was in response to the notice of preliminary objection the DSS raised against the application by Kanu.
Awo told the court that in view of the bulky nature of the document, he needed sufficient time to study and determine whether it contained new facts. The application by the embattled IPOB leader was filed through his team of lawyers, led by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, and Ifeanyi Ejiofor.
Awo, in seeking adjournment, noted that the counter affidavit filed by Kanu, in response to his notice of preliminary objection, was 60-paragraph, but embedded in 15-paragraph.
“It is also accompanied with a judgment from Abia State as an exhibit. In this circumstance, we will be asking for a short day,” he said.
Ozekhome, however, said in the counter affidavit filed by the security agency, they alleged that Kanu jumped bail.
“We have to respond to that circumstance under which he left Nigeria, and those facts had been validated by Abia court in Umuahia,” he responded.
The senior lawyer said they were forced to serve further affidavits on Tuesday because the DSS served them on Friday. He said the security outfit was in the habit of serving them with their processes late to delay hearing.
Justice Nyako, while delivering a short ruling for an adjournment, said she would not tolerate any act that might delay proceedings any longer.
“I will not allow this case to be truncated in the next adjourned date. There must be an end to exchange of processes,” she said.
The court, on the last adjourned date, directed Kanu’s legal team to serve all the relevant processes on both the DSS and its director general, who were cited as first and second respondents in the matter. Kanu, in the suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/ 2341/2022, said he would need his doctors to conduct an independent examination to ascertain his state of health.
Specifically, he is praying to the court for an order, granting him leave to, “apply for judicial review in the form of an order of Mandamus, compelling the respondents to allow the applicant unhindered access to his medical doctors, to enable them to conduct an independent examination of his present deteriorating health condition, as earlier ordered by the Federal High Court, Abuja on October 21, 2021; and as required by the express provisions of Section 7 of the Anti-Torture Act, 2017”.
As well as, “an order of this honourable court granting leave to the applicant to apply for judicial review in the form of an order of Mandamus, compelling the respondents to avail the applicant with all his medical records, from June 29, 2021, till date.”
Kanu listed some of the records he would require from the DSS, including; his admission records, medical and clinical notes, nursing notes, observation charts and documentation during treatment or stay-in-hospital, laboratory test results, pharmaceutical records, radiological scans, images and reports, blood transfusion records, physiotherapy, and rehabilitative treatment records, clinical findings, as well as diagnosis and treatment prescribed records.
On grounds upon which he applied, Kanu noted that the trial Justice Nyako had, on October 21, 2021, ordered that he should be allowed access to three persons of his choice, including his medical doctors.
