An Akwa Ibom State High Court, Uyo, the state capital, has ordered the inspector-general of police (IGP) and five others including the Police Service Commission (PSC) to pay a housewife in Uyo, Peace Ekom Robert, the sum of N200million as damages for the unlawful arrest and detention since March this year.
The trial judge, Justice Ntong Ntong, gave the order yesterday in a judgement he delivered in a case of enforcement of fundamental human rights brought before the court by the applicant.
The particulars of the case recalled that “sometime in March this year, one Ifenyinwa Anthonia Olua, approached the applicant, one Peace Ekom Robert, to link her up with someone in Europe that could buy Euros and pay her in Nigerian Naira.”
The sum of 55,000 Euros, amounting to N42.9 million was said to have been transferred to a Spanish account, and surprised by the transfers which came in quick succession, the account holder, it was learnt, reported to the Spanish authorities, who placed restrictions on the account on the suspicion that the money could be illicit funds, which subsequently led to the arrest of the applicant by the Police.
Joined in the suit as respondents were the IGP, the commissioner of police in charge of administration at the Force Criminal Investigation Department, Abuja, Mr Babazango Ibrahim; DSP Yusuf Dauda of Anti-Homicide Section, Alagbon in Lagos; Inspector Celestina Ugbaja of Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos and Police Service Commission.
In a one-hour judgement, Justice Ntong Ntong, said he had “read in between lines the record file and has not seen where the Inspector General of Police and other respondents filed any process to challenge the averments of the applicant.”
Ntong, therefore, held that “the evidence before the Court showed that the Police threw caution to the wind and became law unto themselves thereby bastardising the 1999 Constitution, disrespecting the order of the court and treating the name of God and Office of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federal Republic of Nigeria with disdain.”
The court also ordered the IGP and five other respondents to “return the N15 million collected from the applicant to the chief registrar of the Federal High Court, Abuja, pending the hearing and final determination of the criminal charge against the applicant before the Federal High Court.”
The trial judge held that “the police is not a debt recovery agency and has no power to have extorted N15 million from the applicant in a matter they have not concluded investigation nor the applicant tried and found guilty by a court of competent jurisdiction.”
The counsel to the applicant, Uwemedimo Nwoko (SAN), described the court as the last hope of the common man, while counsel to the respondent, Barrister Akebong Essien, disputed the outcome of the case, arguing that his client never committed any wrongdoing to have reported the matter to the police.
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