Navy keeps mum over continued detention of citizens without trial

The Nigerian navy has declined to comment on the continued detention of 15 Nigerian citizens for seven months without trial.

The detainees including Dada Labinjo, a navy captain, and Sherifat Ibe Lambert (also known as Mrs Bola Labinjo), a lt. commander, have been in detention since September 2018 for an undisclosed offence.

The navy has neither released them nor charged them to court since they were arrested.

While it has refused to obey the order of a magistrate’s court that Lambert should be released, the security agency is also said to have denied the detainees access to their lawyers and family members.

When Femi Falana, human rights lawyer, raised an alarm over the detentions on Sunday, TheCable contacted Suleman Dahun, Nigerian navy spokesman, for comments but he promised to get back to the reporter.

Two days after, on Tuesday, TheCable reached out to Dahun again, to speak on the matter but he also declined to comment, promising to get back to the reporter.

“I will get back to you,” he simply said.

He is yet to do so as at the time when this report was filed, while text messages sent to him remain unreplied.

Falana had called on Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation, to charge the naval personnel responsible for the violations of the fundamental rights of the detainees with contempt of court and acts of torture under the Criminal Code Act and the Anti Torture Act.