Afolabi Akanni: 'DSS wants our detained lawmaker dead,' Ekiti Assembly alleges

The lawmakers said the DSS failed to release Akanni, representing Efon Constituency, despite a court order directing his immediate release.

Ekiti State House of Assembly members have called on the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and Amnesty International to intervene in the continued detention of one of its members, Hon. Afolabi Akanni, by the Department of State Services (DSS).

The lawmakers said the DSS failed to release Akanni, representing Efon Constituency, despite a court order directing his immediate release.

They accused the security agency of wanting the lawmaker and others in its custody to die so that their positions can be occupied members of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The DSS had presented a sick-looking Akanni to the press on Thursday, March 17, to refute claims by the Ekiti state government that he was dead. He has been reportedly died access to his lawyers, doctors and family members.

On March 11, a Federal High Court in Ado-Ekiti ordered that Hon Akanni be released immediately or be brought to the court in Ado-Ekiti on Wednesday, March 16, 2016, but the DSS refused service of the court order when the Court Bailiff, Araromi Ademola went to the DSS office in Ado-Ekiti, prompting an order that the order be served through newspaper advertisement.

But the agency, last Thursday, claimed it did not see the court order.

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Deputy Speaker of the House of Assembly, Hon Segun Adewumi; Chairmen House Committee on Information and Health, Hon. Gboyega Aribisogan and Hon. Samuel Omotoso were at the NBA national headquarters and the Amnesty International office in Abuja to submit petitions against the DSS on Monday, March 21.

According to Omotosho; “Hon. Akanni said on Thursday, when he was paraded before the press that he slumped twice and no medication was given to him even when he asked for drugs.

“Since it is now obvious that they cannot coerce us into impeaching our governor and leader, Ayodele Fayose, it appears that these people are now working on a sinister theory of snuffing life out of Hon Akanni and some of us so as to pave way for the conduct of bye-election through which they hope to rig APC members into the House of Assembly," he said.

"We have therefore come here to alert the NBA and the Amnesty International of this blatant disregard for orders of our courts by the DSS and infringement on the fundamental rights of our members, especially Hon Akanni, who is dying in detention.

 “We are putting the entire world on alert that should anything untoward happen to Hon Akanni, who is being detained without access to his doctors despite being terribly sick and any of us, the DSS and by extension, the federal government should be held responsible.”

However, the DSS had told the press last week that Akanni was arrested over 'serious security breach,' insisting that the lawmaker is 'hail and hearty.'