Human rights activist and former presidential candidate, Omoyele Sowore, has accused the administration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of perpetuating what he described as “genocide by unlawful detention” through the continued use of Wawa Barracks in Niger State as a secret prison and torture facility.

In a statement shared on his verified social media pages on Sunday, Sowore alleged that the military facility—formally known as the Nigerian Army Cantonment, New Bussa—remains a site of systemic human rights violations where detainees are held incommunicado under inhumane conditions.

According to him, “the Nigerian government has, for years, used Wawa Barracks in Niger State as a secret detention and torture facility—one of the gravest crimes against humanity committed under the regime of the late former President Muhammadu Buhari, and shamefully continued under Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.”

Sowore claimed that hundreds of detainees, many accused without evidence of belonging to or supporting the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), are being subjected to secret trials presided over by federal judges transported into the barracks under tight security.

“Inside this notorious facility, hundreds are held incommunicado, many accused, without evidence, of being members or sympathisers of IPOB. Federal judges are routinely ferried to Wawa Barracks to conduct secret trials, closed to the public and devoid of transparency,” Sowore alleged.

He further stated that detainees are routinely denied access to lawyers, human rights observers, and family members, leaving relatives uncertain about whether their loved ones are dead or alive.

“Detainees are denied access to lawyers and human rights observers, while their families, unaware of their fate, are left to believe they are either dead or disappeared,” he wrote.

Sowore described the continued use of Wawa Barracks as “state-sanctioned genocide—a deliberate erasure of human lives through secrecy, silence, and suffering.”

He called for the immediate and unconditional release of all persons detained at the facility, urging that anyone accused of a crime be charged openly before a competent court and granted full legal rights.

“Those accused of any offence must be charged and tried openly in a court of law, with full access to their families, legal representation, and human rights groups,” he demanded.

The activist also criticised what he called “global silence” on the ongoing abuses, warning that “justice delayed is not just denied; it is destroyed.”

Wawa Barracks has long been accused by human rights organisations of functioning as an off-the-record military detention centre, where terror suspects and political detainees are allegedly held indefinitely without trial.

Reports by SaharaReporters previously detailed cases of detainees, including eleven individuals arrested by the Department of State Services (DSS) in July 2021 while returning from the court trial of IPOB leader Nnamdi Kanu. Two of the detainees—Nonso Awoke, a final-year student at Ebonyi State University, and Pius Awoke, a practising lawyer—were reportedly transferred from a DSS facility in Abuja to Wawa Barracks, where they were never seen again.

Sowore had earlier condemned the facility as one of the most egregious legacies of the Buhari administration, alleging that former DSS Director-General Yusuf Bichi Magaji was instrumental in sending detainees to the site.

In a previous post, Sowore claimed: “In this place, due process was suspended, human rights were trampled, and many who were taken there never returned—not even their bodies were released. We are still pursuing justice for victims like Sunday Ifedi and his wife, Callister, who were abducted from Enugu and perished there without a trace.”

He concluded by calling for the prosecution of all military and judicial officials complicit in what he described as “crimes against humanity carried out under the guise of national security.”