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The Nigerian Medical Association, NMA, has waded into the dispute between the medical personnel of the Department of State Services (DSS) and the private consultants on the health status of the Biafra nation agitator, Mazi Nnamdi Kanu.
The umbrella body for medical doctors in the country has set up a seven-man probe panel to look into the disputes arising between the DSS medical team and the private consultants engaged by Kanu.
Lead counsel to the DSS, Asiwaju Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, revealed this at the Federal High Court in Abuja on Friday while opposing the request by Kanu to be transferred to the National Hospital for urgent medical attention.
Awomolo, SAN, said that a team of eminent medical experts across Nigeria has been put in place and had visited Kanu in DSS custody to ascertain the health status of the detainee.
While the DSS medical team, led by Dr. Mohammed Nasir, a medical officer with DSS, insisted that Kanu can be properly managed at their medical facilities, Kanu’s private consultants, led by Professor Martin Aghaji, a retired professor of medicine, insisted that their client must be taken to the National Hospital.
Professor Aghaji, who retired from the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, Enugu, based his recommendation for the National Hospital on Kanu’s deteriorating health condition.
However, the DSS, which brought in the NMA to resolve the irreconcilable differences on the medical status of the Biafra leader, alleged that Professor Aghaji’s report was exaggerated and suspicious, especially as it partly recommended some American hospitals.
The NMA’s independent report is being awaited, according to Awomolo in his submission to the court.
However, lead counsel to Kanu, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, said his team would not oppose NMA’s intervention only if such is ordered by the Federal High Court.
Earlier, while arguing the application for the transfer of Kanu to the National Hospital, Ikpeazu, SAN, predicated the request on Professor Aghaji’s medical report that Kanu was suffering from a series of ailments that cannot be handled by DSS medical facilities.
He said Kanu would not escape and that the transfer would not pose any security challenge to the federal government-owned hospital, adding that it is in the interest of justice for Kanu to be alive to defend the terrorism charges against him.
The request was, however, vehemently opposed by the DSS lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, who faulted Professor Aghaji’s report.
Among other issues, the DSS lawyer said that no single medical personnel of the agency was involved in any of the tests claimed to have been carried out by Professor Aghaji.
Besides, the DSS lawyer alleged that Professor Aghaji unilaterally changed Kanu’s medication in utter disregard of the ways and methods Kanu had been treated over the past four years, adding that the report was made in bad faith to send false narratives about Kanu’s health challenges to the public.
The DSS said that the exclusion of its medical officers, who have been managing Kanu’s health without hitches, cast doubt on the good faith and credibility of the report and recommendations.
Awomolo, SAN, argued that moving Kanu to the National Hospital would cause chaos and inconveniences for thousands of patients in the hospital.
He insisted that the federal government was deeply concerned about Kanu’s safety and security, hence its opposition to the movement to the National Hospital.
The senior lawyer maintained that Kanu would be allowed to enjoy the services of medical personnel of his choice in DSS facilities rather than being moved to an insecure location.
He pleaded with Justice James Omotosho to refuse the request and stick to the earlier order of accelerated trial.
Justice Omotosho, after taking arguments for and against, announced that he would deliver his ruling later today.
