The Trent can confirm that Mr. Gordon Obua, former
Chief Security Officer to President Goodluck Jonathan
has pa$$ed away a few hours ago, July 20, 2015 in the
custody of Department of Security Services (DSS) in its
Abuja Headquarters where he had been detained since
Thursday, July 16, 2015 on the orders of President
Muhammadu Buhari.
Sources who have been monitoring the situation have
confirmed Obua’s pa$$ing to The Trent. He was
arrested on Thursday when he honoured an invitation by
the DSS and had been in solitary confinement until his
death.
Obua, who was being detained by the DSS in an
underground dungeon for undisclosed reasons was
being denied access to his lawyers, family, and his
doctors on the orders of the new Director General of
the DSS, Lawal Daura. The DSS (also called SSS)
serves as Nigeria’s secret police.
Our sources say Obua’s remains are still in the custody
of the DSS at the time of filing this report. He was held
without charges filed against him.
On July 18, 2015, Onochie Onwuegbuna, the lead
partner at Zeran Legal, has issued a press statement on
behalf of Obua’s family complaining about the
conditions in which his client was being detained and
said that his client was being witch-hunted by the
Buhari government. He said his client was diabetic and
hypertensive and was being denied his drugs as well as
food and water by the DSS.
Obua, until his death, was an employee of the SSS and
his employer knew about his medical conditions but
decided, in impunity, to deny him access to his
medicines and doctor, his lawyer alleged.
Onwuegbuna said that the Buhari government had
‘marked’ his client, and other individuals who held
offices in Jonathan’s administration and the arrest of
his client was a scheme, “in other to implicate them by
all means for phantom crimes or offences”.
A non-governmental organisation, the Society for Global
Justice had issued a statement on Obua’s continued
detention at the DSS, on Saturday calling for the
release of the former Chief Security Officer.
Executive director of the group, Mr. Marcus Ogabe
confirmed that Obua was detained at the SSS
headquarters in Abuja since Thursday.
The group also said the continued detention of Obua is
indicative of “the tyrannical, autocratic and dictatorship
tendency of the Muhammadu Buhari administration”.
“Obua has been detained since last Thursday at the
headquarters of the State Security Services in Abuja
without charge.
“He was also not told the reason for which he is being
detained, the group said.