Abuja jailbreak: Detained engineer’s family seeks legal assistance

                             Isiaka Yusuf

Punch reports: The family of the 32-year-old engineer, Isiaka Yusuf, being held by the State Security Service for posting pictures of the March 30 Abuja jailbreak on Twitter, is seeking legal assistance to ensure his release.

The Electrical and Electronics Engineering graduate of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, who works at the Aso Villa substation of the Abuja Electricity Distribution Company, had live-tweeted pictures from the scene of  the jailbreak by suspected members of the Boko Haram sect.

The SSS headquarters, known as Yellow House, is located behind the Villa.

As a shred of secrecy surrounds his incarceration by the SSS, his immediate younger brother, Sanusi, told Saturday PUNCH on Friday that he had yet to establish any form of contact with him.

Noting that the Chairman of the National Human Rights Commission, Prof. Chidi Odinkalu, had reached out to the family, he added that nothing concrete had been achieved with his intervention.

He has therefore called on human rights lawyers to fight the injustice been meted out to his brother by the secret service.

He said, “The SSS has not contacted me or any of our family members. We haven’t heard from my brother for the past 12 days. We don’t even know whether he is alive or dead. This is unkind. The SSS operatives should put themselves in our shoes.

“My elder brother has not committed any offence. Just because somebody posted a picture on Twitter, you detain him for 12 days running; are we under a military regime?  Human rights lawyers and activists should please come to our aid. We are not powerful. We are not influential; we need help.”

Meanwhile, a close friend of Isiaka in Abuja, who has been leading the search for his whereabouts, said the reason given by the SSS for his arrest was because the former “broke security protocols of the Villa.”

 Our source who spoke under the condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of the matter, added that the SSS contacted the management of the Asokoro office of the AEDC with Isiaka’s telephone within the first 24 hours of his arrest.

The source said, “In fact, for the first three days that he was arrested, his number was still going through periodically. However, each time the calls connected, it was not answered. But in the last nine days, his telephone has been  switched off.

“His office is fully aware of the matter. But they are being careful with the way they are handling the case so that the development will not give the company a bad image. For the SSS, I think it’s wrong on their part to keep Isiaka incommunicado for the past 12days.”