Mr. Emmanuel Emeke Asiwe, the publisher of huhuonline.com, a US-based online media organization has dragged the Director General of the State Security Services (SSS) Mr. Gadzama and the Attorney General of the Federation, Mr. Michael Andoakaa to an Abuja high court over his illegal incarceration and the continued seizure of his travel documents.

Asiwe was arrested by operatives of the SSS on Tuesday, the 28th of October 2008 at the Murtala Mohammed International (MMI) Airport, Lagos. He was detained at the SSS office in the MMI airport on the 28th and 29th of October, 2008 and was later taken to the SSS headquarters in Abuja , where he was detained from the 30th of October to the 4th of November, 2008.

Asiwe visited Nigeria to attend to pressing family issues and attend to his ailing grandfather. He had made provision only for a week’s stay in Nigeria.

Asiwe, whose Nigerian passport has been seized by the SSS, was arrested without being told why. The officers that arrested him also said they were only obeying orders and did not know why he was being arrested. For all the days Asiwe was in detention, he was not charged to court for any criminal offense.

It however took the intervention of the United States Consulate before Asiwe was released on bail on the 4th of November, 2008.

Asiwe who is a dual citizen of Nigeria and America was released with the stern instruction that he should not talk to the press or travel out of Abuja.

In the application filed on behalf of Emmanuel Asiwe by the Festus Keyamo Chambers at the high court , Abuja they prayed for a declaration that the arrest and detention of Asiwe by the SSS is illegal and unconstitutional as it violates the fundamental rights of the publisher as enshrined under section 34,35,36 and 41 of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

The application also wants the court to declare that the seizure or confiscation of Asiwe’s properties including his travel documents is illegal and unconstitutional.

Asiwe’s counsel further prayed for the unconditional release of his properties including his travel documents and an order of perpetual injunction restraining the SSS, their agents and privies from arresting, inviting or detaining Asiwe based on the facts of the present case.

The document however noted that the urgency of the application was based on the fact that Asiwe’s health is steadily deteriorating as he has a precarious health condition of which his doctors had sent his medical report to the SSS and they still refused to release him.

It also read that Asiwe had come to Nigeria with only a week’s supply of his medication and was now in dire need of expert medical attention in USA.

Furthermore, the bail condition that the publisher should not travel out of Abuja had thrown Asiwe into huge extra-budgetary expenses of over N1.5 million on hotel bills and other unplanned expenses.

In a press statement released on the 22nd of December by the Pan-Ndigbo Foundation , USA on the lack of respect for the dignity of human life in Nigeria, the group led by Geoffery Nzeadibe and Felix Okereke, Chairman and secretary respectively, blamed the federal government for the spate of lawlessness and abuse of power in Nigeria.

Their words: “We hold the Federal Government responsible for the decay in law and order. Democracy will never thrive in a society that does not respect the dignity of human lives and respect for People’s properties”.

Other observers who spoke under anonymity all maintained that the noise over, ‘due process’ and ‘rule of law’ by the Federal Government is clear sham.