NBA, Falana condemn Uyo Correctional Service staff for shaving Inihebe Effiong’s head and beard

Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports

The Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Femi Falana (SAN), and Richard Akinola, rights advocates, recently denounced the brutality meted out to activist Inihebe Effiong while she was in the care of the Uyo Correctional Service.

They also voiced amazement at Effiong’s relocation from Uyo Correctional Center to Ikot Ekpene Correctional Center after Justice Ekaette Obot, the Chief Justice of Akwa Ibom State, had remanded him there.

He was allegedly assaulted while having his head and beard shaved.

In a statement, NBA President Olumide Akpata decried Justice Obot’s ruling and said the league would decide whether or not to take the matter up with the National Judicial Council (NJC).

Femi Falana SAN, in a separate statement yesterday, criticized Justice Obot for violating section 36(7) of the constitution by denying Effiong the opportunity to file an appeal by failing to provide him with a certified true copy of her decision.

He also denounced the cruel abuse he endured while incarcerated.

Falana stated in the statement that Inibehe’s fundamental right to dignity, which is protected by Section 34 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, and Article 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap A9 Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004, had been violently violated by the brutal torture inflicted on him by the prison staff in Akwa Ibom State.

It is painful to observe that the unprovoked violence directed at Inibehe serves as a somber reminder of the case of Minere Amakiri, a reporter for the old 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 military governor at the time.

In addition to challenging the flagrant violation of Inibehe’s fundamental rights to dignity of person and fair trial, he continued, “we shall push for the prosecution of the officials who tortured him in violation of section 2 of the Anti-Torture Act of 2017.”

“In Nigeria, torture against anyone carries a 25-year mandatory minimum sentence without the possibility of a fine.”

Falana recounted, “On July 27, 2022, Justice Ekaette Ekaette Obot, the chief judge of Akwa Ibom State, found Inibehe Effiong guilty and sentenced him to one month in prison for contempt of court in prima curiae.