Lawyer for human rights Mr. Femi Falana (SAN) has threatened to file a lawsuit against the jail administration for allegedly abusing lawyer Inibehe Effiong. An activist and attorney named Effiong is currently incarcerated for one month for contempt of court after requesting that the Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom Ekaette Obot step aside from a case he is supervising. The chief judge had refused to give Effiong the certified true copies of the verdict, Falana claimed in a statement on Thursday headed “Brutal Torture Meted out to Inibehe Effiong by Nigerian Correctional Service is Unacceptable.” This had delayed Effiong’s appeal procedure.
According to Falana, the chief judge has refused to furnish him with a certified true copy of her judgment in contravention of Section 36(7) of the constitution, which prescribes that every convict is entitled to a copy of the judgment of the court that tried and convicted him to prevent Effiong from appealing against the conviction and sentence imposed on him. He claimed that Effiong was to be imprisoned in Ikot Ekpene Correctional Center in Akwa Ibom for the entirety of his sentence according to the judge’s warrant, but on Thursday, Effiong was covertly moved to Uyo Correctional Center in handcuffs despite there being no evidence of any violence on his part.
Effiong was made to sit on the hard floor at the Uyo Correctional Center as his head and beard were shaved. The senior counsel stated that he was then exposed to additional abhorrent humiliation and paraded in front of all prisoners. He stated that Effiong’s fundamental right to dignity, which is protected by Section 34 of the constitution and Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, was violently violated by the cruel torture inflicted on him by Akwa Ibom State prison officials.
The unprovoked violence directed at Effiong, according to Falana, is a painful reminder of the case of Meniere Amakiri, a reporter for the former Bendel State-owned newspaper Nigerian Observer, whose head was severed with a broken bottle in 1973 on the orders of Alfred Diette-Spiff, the state’s then military governor. He added that he would push for the prosecution of the officials who tortured Inibehe in violation of section 2 of the Anti-Torture Act of 2017 in addition to challenging the flagrant violation of his fundamental right to the dignity of his person and a fair trial. According to the activist, torture against anyone in Nigeria carries a 25-year prison sentence without the possibility of a fine.
