NDLEA’s inhuman treatment of Baba Suwe

The recent inhuman treatment meted out to leading Yoruba actor, Babatunde Omidina popularly known as Baba Suwe during his 24-day ordeal inside the cell of National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA), was a huge violation of his fundamental human rights.
The entertainer who insisted he was set up, said that contrary to the earlier claim by NDLEA, that their scanner detected some substances suspected to be hard drugs in his stomach, maintained that nothing of such happened.
“Immediately, I approached the counter, a lady directed me to proceed to the NDLEA office. There was no check before I was directed. Afterwards, I was leg-chained like a common criminal. My system was flushed several times and at a time, I was forced to rummage my faeces in search of banned substances.”
Subjecting a defenceless man to such cruelty in this age and time was no doubt a crime against humanity and we totally condemn this inhuman treatment on one of the leading entertainment icons in Nigeria by NDLEA. The Nigerian constitution avers that a suspect remains innocent until proven guilty. The haste with which NDLEA rushed to the media to try and convict Omidina, when a court of competent jurisdiction had not yet pronounced the actor guilty of any wrong doing, still baffles many Nigerians till date.

Already, Bamidele Aturu, constitutional lawyer and the legal counsel to the traumatized and dehumanized actor has been talking tough and is set to commence a fresh multi-billion Naira suit against the agency. However, this will have to wait pending the final verdict of a N100 million case, before Justice Yetunde Idowu of the Ikeja Federal High Court, slated for November 24.
Aturu who revealed the above sordid details his client went through in the custody of NDLEA at a briefing attended by the actor and his friends recently at his chambers, said the agency must pay for their atrocities against an innocent man.
We once again agree with Aturu and urged him to fast track the process of extracting justice from the agency because justice delayed is justice denied.
Omidina’s ordeal in NDLEA custody began on October 12, when he was about to board an Air France flight to Paris. The comedian was due to anchor a child naming ceremony of a staff of the French national carrier.
The emaciated comedian who was making his first public appearance after his release on Friday, November 4, maintained a measured silence while his legal counsel addressed a cross-section of the media.
At the briefing, the 53 year-old actor also displayed scars from his manacled legs while in detention.
While calling for the resignation of both the Chairman and Director General of the anti-narcotics body, Aturu again reiterated that the battle against the NDLEA’s poor handling of suspects was not only for Baba Suwe, but for thousands of Nigerians who have been subjected to such inhuman treatments in the past.

We concur with Mr. Aturu and joined many Nigerians to condemn the NDLEA for its high-handedness and poor-handling of the case against the popular actor. We also find distasteful the comment attributed to Mitchell Ofoyeju, spokesperson of the agency that the way the actor was treated is the same way all its suspects had been treated. Arrant nonsense!

It is now clear to all that the agency goofed in its handling of the high-profile case involving Babatunde Omidina. Even the revered Justice Yetunde Idowu was not sparing in her harsh criticisms of NDLEA, while acceding to the request of unconditional release of the actor by his lawyer in pursuant to Order IV Rules 3 and 4 of the Fundamental Human Rights Enforcement Procedure Rules 2009.
The scenario has exposed an embarrassing flaw in the operations of the agency which has made it a laughing stock in the comity of anti-narcotics bodies across the globe. While this can be blamed on lack of adequate training for agency personnel as well as dearth of requisite equipments, we also recognised the fundamental loophole of poor funding.
NDLEA’s current budgetary allocation stands at N7, 823, 793, 322, an amount which is a far cry from the agency’s projection. In 2009, Chairman of the NDLEA, Mallam Ahmadu Giade, took the battle for funding to the House of Representatives Committee on Drugs, Narcotics, Financial Crimes and Anti-Corruption.
Giade represented by the out-gone Director General of the agency, Otunba Lanre Ipinmisho, disclosed that whereas the NDLEA proposed to expend the sum of N13.469 billion on its operations, the Federal Government slashed the figure to N4.92billion.
Beyond the arithmetic and politics of budgetary allocation, for a Federal Government agency that has come under heavy criticisms for being sluggish and underperforming, an immediate inquiry into the handling of the Baba Suwe fiasco should commence now. The result of the exercise should be made public and adequate penalty meted out to erring staff that ridiculed and brought the agency into public disrepute.
Moreover, the agency should immediately embark on the re-training of her staff, discard incompetent ones and obsolete facilities, if it does not want to embarrass itself any further.
Finally, we suggest that Baba Suwe should be recommended for a national honour next year; this would further assuage his pains and erase the humiliation and ignominy the unwarranted arrest and detention had caused him and his entire family. Great nations do not treat their icons like piece of rags; rather they revere and honour them.
Baba Suwe as an icon has done great things for this nation more than most of those recently recognized and honoured with national awards by Mr. President in Abuja.