Femi Falana says the state held him. He has gone to the ECOWAS Court.

Femi Falana says armed agents of the National Security Organisation arrested him on 8 June 1985 at the Lagos State High Court. He says they took him to his chambers and searched them without a warrant. He says they found nothing incriminating. He says he was then held for seven weeks at the NSO facility at 15 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi.

That is his account, in a suit reported on 27 September. The suit is ECW/CCJ/APP/30/2026 at the ECOWAS Community Court of Justice in Abuja. It asks for declarations that his arrests and detentions were unlawful, and for $10 million in damages. The court has yet to determine any of it.

Falana was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1982. In his application, the first dispute begins with him acting for someone else. He says he represented University of Ibadan students facing conspiracy and attempted murder charges while doing his National Youth Service in Oyo State. He says the NYSC withheld his discharge certificate because of it. He says the students' case was decided in their favour.

He says he later appeared before the Uwaifo Panel, set up to investigate detentions, and that the security authorities gave an inaccurate explanation for his. He says he was abducted from his Lagos home at about 2am on 8 April 1990 and left in a bush near the Lagos-Epe road. He says the SSS denied involvement and the military government rejected his request for an investigation.

In October 1991, he says, the SSS stopped him travelling to a human rights conference in Harare and kept his passport for six months. He says Dr Olisa Agbakoba, SAN, read his paper there on his behalf.

He says he was arrested again on 19 May 1992, at the Lagos State High Court. The 1985 arrest, he says, happened at the same court. He says he was held for two days at Bar Beach Police Station and flown to Abuja with Beko Ransome-Kuti and Baba Omojola. He says he, Gani Fawehinmi, Ransome-Kuti and Omojola were charged with conspiracy and treasonable felony, and held without a choice of lawyers.

He says a judge ordered his release on 8 June 1992 and that the Babangida administration did not comply. He says he, Fawehinmi and Ransome-Kuti were later prosecuted after opposing the annulment of the 12 June 1993 election. He says bail orders in that case were first disobeyed, and that they stayed in detention until August 1993.

Four of the allegations turn on paper. A discharge certificate withheld. A passport kept. A release order not obeyed. Bail orders disobeyed. Those are the application's claims. None has been tested in court.

None of the reports reviewed carries a response from the Federal Government.