By TINA TIMOTHY

The President, Centre for Change, Dr. Joe Okei Odumakin, has decried the alleged inhuman and degrading treatment of a human rights lawyer, Inibehe Effiong who was remanded in custody by a Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom State, Justice Ekaette Obot, for alleged contempt of court, lamenting that “scraping of Effiong’s hair, shearing his beard and making him seat on the bare floor while in custody and without proper court process amount to ‘brazen disregard for human dignity and rights’.”

In a press statement on Sunday, August 14, 2022, Odumakin called on relevant authorities to immediately ensure that Effiong is released, and ‘a clean court process’ instituted to ‘effect lawful measures on whoever is/are responsible for this national embarrassment and disrepute,’ adding that people have made grave sacrifices for this menace to stop and such would not be tolerated in 2023.

“We see the picture of scraping in incarceration of a man used to barbing.

“We see the picture of a man summarily sentenced in beard-shearing instead of shaving. Sitting on bare floor instead of a seat.

“We hear from lawyers about devious devices to keep appeal processes at bay and enforce jaundiced justice.

“While we await the truth or denial of these reports, we call on all the authorities relevant to this eyesore to save the day by effecting the immediate release of Barrister Inibehe Effiong, after which a clean court process should commence to effect lawful measures on whoever is/are responsible for this national embarrassment and disrepute,” Odumakin stated.

“We should not close our eyes to this brazen disregard for human dignity and rights in 2023 Nigeria.

“People have fought, bled, suffered detention and died so that this would stop. It must stop,” she added.