On Thursday morning, FIJ published a report exposing how Aisha Buhari, Nigeria’s First Lady, harassed and assaulted her staff and innocent Nigerians with the help of the police and the Department of State Services (DSS).

The wife of President Muhammadu Buhari has a track record of human rights violations and abuse of power she constitutionally does not possess. This runs in the Buhari family. Since assuming office in 2015, members of the family have used Nigeria’s security agencies to detain and harass people they were displeased with.

FIJ looks at three cases that gained media attention.

FOR NAMING DOG ‘BUHARI’, POLICE ARREST, DETAIN MAN

On August 13, 2016, the Ogun State police arrested Joe Chinakwe, a 40-year-old, for naming his dog after the president.

Chinakwe said he admired the president and had previously named two of his dogs after past presidents of South Africa, Nelson Mandela; and USA, Barrack Obama.

READ MORE: ‘First Lady, Last Human’ — Aisha Buhari’s Legacy of Human Rights Violations

He said he admired Buhari and was taken aback when the police accused him of breach of peace.

Chinakwe was remanded in prison ten days after his arrest and endured a court battle that lasted until July 26, 2017, when he was discharged for failure of the prosecution to prove its case.

PHARMACIST KIDNAPPED BY DSS IN 2020 FOR TWEETING

Emmanuel Akuma, a pharmacist, was abducted by the DSS on April 2, 2020, for responding to a Twitter poll asking what one would do if they got $1 million.

Akuma had tweeted that he would “pay a Russian sniper to eliminate Buhari and Kyari,” referring to the president and Abba Kyari, the president’s former chief of staff.

Solomon Akuma, Emmanuel’s father, who is a cleric, told newsmen he was lured by somebody “who disguised to be a person seeking to reward him for praying for him in the past”.

“It was me they used as bait to get to my son,” he said. “They used me as their link. Someone must have dug up my profile and they found out that I was a pastor.”

He said the DSS arrested him, took his phone and reached Emmanuel via it.

READ ALSO: Aisha Buhari Endorses el-Rufai’s Claim That Elements in the Villa Are Working Against Tinubu

On November 23, 2021, a federal high court struck out a case against Emmanuel, but the pharmacist only regained his freedom on January 12, 2023, for lack of diligent prosecution.

MAN LEGALLY PURCHASED SIM PREVIOUSLY USED BY HANAN BUHARI, DSS ARRESTED HIM

When Anthony Okolie bought an MTN SIM card on December 8, 2018, he never imagined it would cost him his freedom and fundamental rights.

On July 22, 2019, the DSS arrested Okolie and accused him of using a phone number previously owned by Hanan Buhari, daughter of the president.

Okolie was arrested in Delta State and taken to Abuja where he was detained until December 2019.

“Okolie lawfully bought the SIM card after years of redundancy, unknown to him who the previous owner was,” Tope Akinyode, Okolie’s lawyer, told newsmen.

Hanan denied involvement in his arrest, but the DSS told the court Okolie’s action threatened national security. The court ordered the secret police to compensate Okolie with N10 million.

In each of the cases, the courts deemed the matters lacking in diligent prosecution and discharged the accused, indicating there was little substance to the allegations leveled against the persons involved.

While not only wasting court time, the DSS and police abandoned their responsibilities to fight personal battles of the president’s household.