Unlawful Detention: Police to pay N1m damages
An Abuja Federal High Court on Monday ordered the Inspector-General of Police to pay Mr Osita Okereke N1million as damages for unlawful detention.
Okereke is the Director of the Task Force on Illegal Importation of Small Arms and Light Weapons in Nigeria, a public private partnership organisation.
Delivering judgment, Justice Ahmed Mohammed ruled that the arrest and detention of Okereke violated Section 35 (1) (C) of the 1999 Constitution.
“The Inspector-General of Police failed to produce any fact about an informant on the security threat posed by the applicant and provided no evidence of the directive by the National Security Adviser to arrest him’’, Mohammed said and added that the action contravened section 115 of the Evidence Act, 2011.
The News Agency of Nigeria recalls that Okereke was arrested by the police in Abuja on Aug. 15, 2013, allegedly on the orders of the NSA.
Okereke was later arraigned on Aug. 27 before an Abuja Magistrates’ Court on a one-count charge of posing security threat to the country.
His lawyer, Mr Kanayo Okafor, had in an application for the enforcement of his client’s fundamental rights, urged the court to declare his detention unlawful.
He also urged the court to pay him exemplary damages for the ordeal that he went through.
(NAN)
