Nigerian judge fears SSS would abduct, torture bailiff; asks lawyer to serve summons on agency via DHL

A federal judge earlier this week declined to order a court official to serve processes on the State Security Service (SSS) due to the militarisation of the agency that she feared could put the official in harm’s way.

Justice Modupe Osho-Adebiyi, while presiding over a case at the Gudu Division of the FCT High Court, modified the application of Zaid Nurudeen, counsel to a plaintiff who had sought permission of the court to send its bailiff to serve notice of hearing and other filings on the SSS.

According to Ms Osho-Adebiyi, sending the bailiff to serve court papers to the SSS at its headquarters would amount to “endangering” the life of court staff.

“You want me to endanger my bailiff by sending him to SSS office? When you know how militarised those people are,” Ms Osho-Adebiyi remarked on Monday, spotlighting the dreaded public perception of the domestic intelligence agency.

She then ordered the lawyer to employ the service of courier giant DHL to deliver the court filings to the agency’s office.  

SSS spokesperson Peter Afunnaya did not respond to comments on the judge’s characterisation of SSS’ hooliganism, which has been at the heart of the agency’s public notoriety for decades.

Created in 1986 as part of a trio of internal and foreign intelligence departments, the SSS has become particularly infamous after its agents were exposed for carrying out assassinations and other cruel repressive methods for defunct military regimes in the 1990s. 

After Nigeria returned to civil rule in 1999, the agency’s personnel maintained their posture ruthless reputation, largely serving successive presidents as elements of intimidation against political opposition, media practitioners, civic groups and everyday citizens. 

Ms Osho-Adebiyi’s reluctance to send a bailiff to the SSS headquarters came weeks after The Gazette reported how agents brutalised a Benin-based lawyer after he resisted attempt to forcibly take his client to a secluded corner for questioning without his presence. 

Mr Nurudeen is in the employ of Emmanuel Osagwu, a home-based professional footballer who is asking the court to stop the SSS from further harassing or arresting him based on a “fictitious” petition submitted by his estranged girlfriend, Sylvie Benard.

Mr Osagwu deposed to an affidavit that he had been subjected to inhumane torture, day-long detention, and brutalisation by federal agents. He also said they abducted him in October and subjected him to rigorous interrogation for hours without allowing him to contact his lawyer or relatives.

He alleged that his arrest and interrogation were orchestrated by his estranged girlfriend, who could not come to terms with their separation and has continued to stalk and harass him.

“The peak of this harassment was when she arranged SSS agents to pick me up and detain me for a whole day just to prove a point that she usually says, that I cannot leave the relationship without suffering the consequences,” Mr Osagwu told Peoples Gazette.