In a statement on Friday, the lawyer said the ruling party should have shown support for youths and women contesting party electoral seats by giving interested persons at least 75 per cent discount.

The APC had said aspirants vying for the office of national chairman of the ruling party would pay N20m to obtain forms.

This is as the forms for deputy national chairman will sell for N10m while zonal chairmen and other officers would pay N5m to obtain nomination forms.

The party also said female aspirants and people with disabilities would pay 50 per cent of all the aforementioned rates.

But in the statement titled, ‘APC National Chairmanship 20M Nomination Form is Ridiculous’, Olajengbesi said the party should also have slashed the fee for youths as a form of encouragement and inclusion.

He said, “Political parties in Nigeria are clearly dishonest about their readiness to encourage, assimilate and give young men and women the much needed room and encouragement to participate in the political process, and this is underscored by the monetisation of the entire process from the picking of nomination or intent forms to the width of consultation and ‘compromises’ on the political trail. I would know.

Olajengbesi stated this in a Facebook post on Thursday, noting that security agents should embarrass Kyari by parading him before the media as they do to other suspects.

“In this Abba Kyari’s case, the Nigerian security agencies are yet to demonstrate equal lawlessness they carry out in investigating and embarrassing citizens by interviewing them on cameras, taking their pictures holding boards with incriminating inscriptions and parading them with their criminal items in press conference like they do to common criminals.We need the NDLEA to bring Abba Kyari to answer questions on TV with display of the 25kg cocaine. Let us not be hopeless in this country!” the lawyer wrote.

The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, on Monday, handed over Kyari to anti-narcotics agency for prosecution over alleged link in drug trafficking after the NDLEA release damning photo and video evidence to nail Kyari.

The NDLEA said Kyari, the suspended head of the Intelligence Response Team, belonged to a drug cartel that operates the Brazil-Ethiopia-Nigeria illicit drug pipeline.

The anti-narcotics agency also said Kyari contacted one of its officers in Abuja and struck a deal to secure the release of a total of 25kg seized cocaine and offered $61,400 bribe to NDLEA officers who played along until his arrest.

The NDLEA also said it had photo and video evidence against Kyari.

The IGP in a statement had corroborated the NDLEA’s findings, saying incontrovertible evidence indicted Kyari in the drug crimes.

The police had been investigating Kyari for over eight months after the Federal Bureau of Investigation in the United States indicted the “super cop” in 2021 for his alleged role in a $1m scam allegedly perpetrated by alleged international Internet fraudster Ramon Abbas, aka, Hushpuppi and five others.

The FBI had said Hushpuppi paid Kyari N8m or $20,600 for the arrest and detention of a “co-conspirator,” Chibuzo Vincent.

The United States Attorney’s Office at the Central District of California had declared Kyari wanted but the Nigerian government has yet to extradite him to face prosecution in the US before the cop’s NDLEA ordeal

However, in its recent report, the Nigeria Police Force revealed that members of a syndicate led by Hushpuppi paid N235,120,000 to Kyari’s younger brother.

The probe also indicated that Kyari equally funnelled N44m to his brother’s bank account in multiple transactions

However, the investigation report obtained by our correspondent failed to disclose whether Kyari’s brother was acting as a proxy for his embattled elder brother who is currently in NDLEA custody and is expected to be arraigned for drug trafficking-related offences.

Security agents have also not arrested Kyari’s brother as of press time.

The lawyer defending the aides of Chief Sunday Adeyemo aka Sunday Igboho, Pelumi Olajengbesi, disclosed this to newsmen as he threatens legal action against the security agency that is still holding on to two others despite the court granting them bail.

According to Olajengbesi, only Tajudeen Irinloye and Uthman Opeymi Adelabu were released on Friday, September 3 while Amudat Habibat Babatunde and Jamiu Noah Oyetunji remained in the custody of the secret police. He said the DSS didn’t give any reason for its refusal to grant freedom to the detainees.

A statement he released reads “DSS selective obedience to court order; an affront to and disregard of the authority of the court”, the lawyer noted that the DSS simply has no right or power to select or unilaterally handpick which order of the court is convenient for it to obey or honour.

The keenly observing world will recall that during our last press briefing on the ongoing case of Chief Sunday Igboho’s aides, it was reported that the DSS is yet to release four detainees on their custody on grounds of bail perfection technicality, in which we were allowed to secure the release of others.

The DSS’ cherry-picking of an order of the court is an open dare and affront on the authority of the issuing court and it lacks legal backing under the extant laws of Nigeria. It is a condemnable action in any sane democratic society and speaks ill of the professionalism of the intelligence agency.

The DSS simply has no right nor power to select or unilaterally handpick which order of the court is convenient for it to obey or honour. Any iota of non-compliance to an order of the court is tantamount to disregard of such an order in its entirety and the same is contemptuous.

Consequently, we want to restate that if by Monday the 6th of September, 2021, the DSS continue with their unlawful detention of the remaining two detainees, we shall not hesitate to proceed with our earlier plans to institute a contempt proceeding against the Director-General of the SSS, Yusuf Magaji Bichi.

The DSS as a law enforcement agency should not be allowed to carry out its official responsibility with impunity and absolute disrespect to the law of the land, especially where the constitutional rights and liberty of citizens are at stake. It is reprehensible conduct unbecoming of an agency which is itself a creation of the law and it will not go unchallenged.”

The DSS filed a notice of appeal numbered, FHC/ABJ/647/2021, through its counsel, Idowu Awo, on August 13, 2021. The DSS expressed strong dissatisfaction against the August 4, 2021 ruling of Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court, Abuja granted bail to all detainees.

The DSS, in the notice of appeal, contended that “the learned judge erred in law and thereby occasioned a miscarriage of justice” when he dismissed the objection filed by the DSS against the bail application of the detainees.

The DSS, therefore, urged the Court of Appeal, “to allow this appeal and set aside the ruling of the lower court delivered on August 4, 2021.”

Our correspondent gathered that the Federal High Court has since issued a summons for compilation and transmission of court records to the appellate court.

The detainees’ lawyer, Pelumi Olajengbesi said his 12 clients, who are still in custody, had already met their bails conditions.

He said he was at the bail office of the court on Tuesday waiting for the judge to sign the release order of his clients but he was told that Justice Egwuatu had travelled out.

Olajengbesi said he and other members of Igboho’s legal team had been served the DSS appeal but alleged that the secret police was behaving “lawlessly.”

“The DSS is beginning to act lawlessly and not in the interest of the country. When bail has been granted already, the DSS should be concerned about the liberty of the people and not be filing appeals against the bail granted. The DSS is gravitating towards lawlessness,” the detainees’ lawyer said.

Olajengbesi made this known in a chat with The PUNCH on Sunday.

However, a source within the court said that judges are avoiding the matter because of its sensitive nature.

The source said, “In fact, two judges initially declined to take up the suit when it was assigned to their courts before it was taken up by Justice Obiora Egwuatu of the Federal High Court 9, Abuja.”

Recall that at least a dozen of Igboho’s associates were arrested and detained by the secret police on July 1 2021 after the DSS’ bloody raid of Igboho’s residence in the Soka area of Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.

The secret police also said that it “gunned down” two of the activist’s associates during a “gun duel” which Igboho narrowly escaped. He has later declared wanted for allegedly stockpiling arms, an allegation he denied.

Olajengbesi had earlier told The PUNCH that the secret police refused to grant him and the other lawyers on the case access to the 12 suspects detained by the DSS.

The detained persons, through their lawyers, subsequently sued the secret police and its director-general.

Olajengbesi on Sunday told The PUNCH that though Tuesday and Wednesday had been announced by the Federal Government as holidays to mark the Eid-el-Kabir celebrations, the court insisted that it would hear the case on Tuesday.