Jan. 20, 2022

A Federal High Court, Abuja has adjourned two separate suits filed by Leader of the proscribed Islamic Movement in Nigeria (IMN), Sheikh Ibraheem El-Zakzaky and his wife, Zeenat, until March 9 for hearing.

Justice Inyang Ekwo fixed the date after counsel to the defence appeared in court with an application for extension of time to regularise their processes.

Justice Ekwo granted their prayers and adjourned the matter until March 9 for definite hearing.

The judge ordered all the parties to file all the processes necessary for the hearing, saying that “on the date of hearing, the processes of any parry that is absent from court shall be deemed as adopted.”

El-Zakzaky and his wife, in the suits filed on October 14, 2021, had sued the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) for N2 billion each over the seizure of their passports.

The plaintiffs said their passports were seized from them after they returned from a government-supervised medical trip to India in 2019.

El-Zakzaky and his wife were then standing trial at the Kaduna State High Court on charges of culpable homicide, unlawful assembly, among charges filed against them in connection to the bloody clash between IMN members and soldiers in Zaria, Kaduna State, in December 2015.

The couple, who were freed of the charges with the Kaduna court declaring them not to have any case to answer in a July 28, 2021 ruling, said, in their rights enforcement suits, that the Indian trip “was supervised and controlled” by the Nigerian Intelligence Agency (NIA) and the DSS.

The trip “was aborted for reasons best known to the Federal Government,” the couple said, adding that their passports and other travelling documents were then taken from them “and kept in the custody of the respondents.”

Following the Kaduna court’s ruling, the couple’s lawyer, Femi Falana, SAN, wrote separate letters to the NIA, the DSS, and the AGF, demanding the release of their passports allegedly seized after the Indian trip.

The couple said in their suits that while NIA replied to their letter, both the DSS and the AGF ignored them. (NAN)