Case against the DSS and the Dunamis Church.

Despite a court order ordering their release, they were held in the custody of the DSS for more than 30 days.

Due to the retirement of the presiding judge, the court hearing of the human rights case filed by five #BuhariMustGo activists against the Dunamis International Gospel Centre in Abuja and the Department of State Services was stalled on Wednesday.

This was revealed in a statement to Television Nigerian on Wednesday by human rights lawyer Tope Temokun.

The hearing of the case could not proceed, according to the statement, due to the aforementioned reason.

“Upon the retirement of Justice Chikere of the Federal High Court 3 Abuja, the judge who wrote her name in gold before retirement for ordering the DSS to release the 5 youth activists who filed for the enforcement of their rights to personal liberty against the DSS and Pastor Enenche for their unlawful arrest and detention… we are in court today but the matter could not go on owing to the exit from the bench of this great judge,” Temokun said.

On July 4, 2021, the DSS arrested Ben Mannaseh, Emmanuel Larry, Victor Udoka Anene, a blind saxophonist, Samuel Gabriel Iwatonaiye, and Henry Nwodohave for wearing #BuhariMustGo branded shirts on the church premises in Abuja.

Despite a court order ordering their release, they were held in the custody of the DSS for more than 30 days.

On July 26, 2021, Justice Anwuli Chikere granted bail to five activists who had been detained and arrested by the DSS since July 4, 2021 for wearing T-shirts with the slogan #BuhariMustGo to the Church.

In separate exparte applications filed on behalf of the defendants by their lawyer, Temokun, Justice Chikere issued the order.

Ben Manasseh, Anene Udoka, Henry Nwodo, Samuel Larry, and Samuel Gabriel are among the applicants.

They were apprehended by the DSS for wearing ‘Buhari Must Go’ T-shirts to a Sunday service at the Dunamis International Gospel Centre Headquarters in Lugbe.

However, the defendants, who claimed that the DSS’s actions had violated their fundamental rights, went to court to seek redress.

President Muhammadu Buhari and the church’s pastor-in-charge, Pastor Paul Enenche, are also being sued alongside the DSS.

Mr Yusuf Bichi, Director-General of the DSS, and Mr Abubakar Malami, Attorney-General of the Federation, are among the others (SAN).

They asked the court to declare their arrest and detention illegal, as well as to award N10 million in damages to each of them for the violation of their fundamental rights.

The five had filed a contempt suit against Yusuf Bichi, the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), for disobeying the court’s bail order.

On July 30, the activists filed a ‘Notice of Consequences of Order of Court, also known as Form 48,’ in order to force the SSS boss to serve time in prison.

Tomekun, their lawyer, had filed the suit on their behalf in a Federal High Court in Abuja at the time. The DSS DG could face jail time, according to the court notice.

Recall that a Magistrate Court in Mpape had also admitted the activists to bail in the sum of N500,000 each with one surety each on Wednesday, July 28, 2021, but DSS operatives hurriedly drove the activists away before the bail conditions were perfected.

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