Ijaw activist and spokesman of Ijaw Peoples Development Initiative, (IPDI), is considering taking legal action against the Department of State Security (DSS) for the what it described as illegal detention of its spokesman Comrade Ezekiel Daniel, for over one year for allegedly being a member of the Niger Delta Avengers.
IPDI legal adviser, Barr. Omemiroro Ogedegbe and its National President, Comrade Austin Ozobo who confirmed this development said the group would soon announced the next steps it would take for the wrong accusation and detention of Comrade Daniel who was released today by operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS) in Asaba, Delta state.
Daniel travail started after he allegedly exposed the identity of the persons who led soldiers to arrest two Ijaw youths alleged to be connected to ex-militant leader, Government Ekpemupolo, alias Tompolo, at the wake of Niger Delta Avengers strikes in February, 2016.
After he reportedly made the exposure, DSS detectives around August 2016 swooped on him over trumped-up allegation leveled against him by an All Progressive Congress (APC) chieftain, Chief Michael Johnny that he was the spokesperson of Niger Delta Avengers.
He was detained in DSS secret detention centres in Abuja for a year and 3months.
Several efforts, petitions & publications were made by various individuals and groups. Bail applications were filed, first at Warri federal high court and another was filed in Abuja by Eric Omare on behalf of Sely Torugbedi and Alex Odogu, IYC Abuja spokesman, Jones Abiri and Daniel Ezekiel.
While ,the bail applications were yet to be considered, a panel was set up by the DSS to carefully examine the circumstances surrounding Ezekiel’s arrest.The panel exonerated Ezekiel of all the trumped up allegations & the director of DSS ordered for his immediate release & was finally released today.
Besides Ezekiel Daniel who has now been released, IYC had listed some of those still in custody over suspicion of aiding militancy in the region as Sely Torugbedi, Alex Odogu, IYC Abuja spokesman and Jones Abiri, a Bayelsa-based journalist among those being “unjustly” held by the federal government.
Omare had maintained that even in cases where the detained persons have sought, the intervention of the courts for their release, the government has bluntly declined to obey the orders of court.
