Suspected Independence Day bomber goes on hunger strike, threatens FG

29th Jan. 2016

The alleged mastermind of the 2010 Independence Day bombing in Abuja, Charles Okah, has embarked on a hunger strike to protest against harassment by officials of the Kuje prison.

The suspect has also threatened to file a suit demanding N5 billion damages from the federal government.

Premium Times reports that the threat was contained in a letter written by Okah’s counsel, Timi Okponipere, and addressed to Abdulraman Dambazau, the minister of interior.

“At the time of writing this letter, our client is as emaciated as a bean pole on account of the hunger strike he has embarked upon, to draw global attention to his plight.”

“Literarily and figuratively speaking, our client is virtually a dead man. If our client dies in prison custody, the entire world, particularly the Ijaw nation and the Niger Delta where our client hails from, shall rise in unison against President Muhammadu Buhari’s government, even as we concede the fact that, our client’s ordeal began during the tenure of former president Goodluck Jonathan, a fellow Ijaw,” the letter read in part.

The lawyer said that on January 6 some prison officials entered his client’s cell and carted away his books, journals and manuscripts, one of which contained Okah’s prison memoirs.

According to Okponipere, the invasion of his client’s cell was based on the orders of the head of the Kuje prison, Musa Tanko.

The lawyer revealed that another manuscript titled “Research Study: Security Lapses and Vice in Kuje Prison,” contained a detailed report exposing security lapses, illicit sex, indiscipline, corruption and other vices of prison warders.

“Our client was to submit the report to the honourable minister of interior, the national security adviser, as well as the director general of the State Security Service, before the unfortunate incident occurred.”

“Specifically, on January 10, when the honourable minister of interior visited the prison, in company of the director general of the State Security Service, our client approached the minister and conveyed his intention to forward a draft copy of the research study to his (minister) office for necessary action.

“Secondly Sir, following our client’s bold initiative to approach the minister of interior during his visit to the prison, our client has been kept in solitary confinement within the prison service since January 10, 2016 by Mr. Tanko and his officers, ostensibly as a punitive, vindictive and malicious measure, to force our client to back down from his avowed determination to expose the ongoing rot in the prison,” the lawyer further wrote.

Okponipere stressed that Tanko lacks the power to subject an inmate to another form of imprisonment without a court order. According to the lawyer, keeping his client in solitary confinement is arbitrary, illegal and an arrogant usurpation of the judicial function.

He also accused the prison authority of refusing to convey his client to the National Hospital in Abuja to keep a surgery appointment with doctors.

Okponipere called for an immediate return of all materials seized from his client and insisted on an immediate conveyance of Okah to the hospital.

In October 2015, the alleged mastermind of the Independance Day bombing caused a stare at the Federal High Court as he attempted to take his life.

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