Court orders FG to pay journalist N10.5m for illegal detention by DSS

The Abuja division of the Federal High Court has ordered the Federal Government to pay jounrnalist, Jones Abiri, the sum of N10 million in damages for his unlawful detention by the Department of State Services (DSS).

Abiri, publisher of the Weekly Source, a newspaper based in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State, was arrested in 2016 for allegedly being the leader of the joint revolutionary council of the Joint Niger Delta Liberation Force, a separatist group and was alleged to have planned to bomb oil installations.

He was detained by the DSS for two years, and a recent public outcry eventually forced the agency to arraign him at a Magistrates' Court in Abuja.

In a fundamental suit filed against the Federal Government, Abiri argued that the detention violated his rights.

While ruling on the application on Thursday, September 13, 2018, Justice Nnamdi Dimgba said the Federal Government had no right to detain Abiri after taking his statement two years ago.

"Having taken his statement, the applicant should have been arraigned," he said.

He said Abiri should have been promptly arraigned two years ago and dismissed the government's submission that the journalist was held as a matter of national security, and declared that his detention was illegal and an abuse of his fundamental rights.

Abiri is currently out on bail.