Charles Okah in Solitary Confinement for Recording Prison Abuse - Lawyer Speaks Out

Charles Okah (middle) during one of his court appearances in Abuja 

Timipa Okponipere, a lawyer representing Charles Okah, who is held in connection with the 2010 Independence Day bombing in Abuja, on Thursday, accused Nigerian Prison authorities of punishing him for recording abuses within the Kuje prison in Abuja.


The legal practitioner disclosed that Charles had been held in solitary confinement without food and drugs within the last 24 hours after he disagreed with the officer in charge of Kuje prison, Musa Tanko, adding that his journals were also seized.


Mr. Okponipere said; "We are doing a letter which will be delivered to the Minister of Interior on Monday to draw his attention to the predicament that my client, Okah, is passing through now. "We are raising the alarm now so that if anything happens to Mr. Okah, the prison authorities will be held responsible. As we speak, they are about bringing trumped up charges against him," he said.

The lawyer said even as an inmate of the Kuje Prison, Charles' fundamental rights were guaranteed by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Government of Nigeria. He argued that his client was merely on awaiting trial, which means he had not been found guilty of any crime by a court of competent jurisdiction.

"The Constitution guarantees him the right to liberty and peaceful enjoyment of his life and to own property including intellectual property. What the Kuje Prison authorities are doing to him is unlawful. The African Chatter on Human and Peoples Rights guarantees the right of prisoners.

"To that extent, it is unlawful to confiscate an inmate’s journals; it is a breach of his fundamental right to own property. We are going to point out these infringements in the letter we are doing to the minister of interior who has the supervisory role of the Nigeria Prisons Service.

"We are also asking the Prison authorities to release Mr. Okah’s journals and the memoir he was writing on his prison experiences since he got there in December 2010. They seized his memoir and the research report he was writing about corruption, security lapses and drugs trafficking that are allegedly going on inside the Kuje Prison.

"Having been there for five years, he has a first-hand knowledge of all the things that are going on inside there," said Mr. Okah’s counsel.

As a legitimate citizen of Nigeria, Okponipere said his client has the right to let the appropriate authority know what has been going on inside the prison walls. Asked whether he has contacted the prison authorities on the ordeal of his client, he said he had not and argued that the authorities of the Kuje Prison had already taken a position that was prejudicial to his client.

"It would be counterproductive to discuss with them. That is why we are going to contact the minister of interior. If anything happens to Mr. Okah, the prison authorities will be held responsible because they have kept him in solitary confinement for over 24 hours now without food and drugs," Okponipere concluded.


Source: Premium Times
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