A Chief Magistrate’s Court sitting in Abuja has remanded Prof Zainab Duke Abiola in Suleja Prison over the assault on Inspector Teju Moses, a police orderly attached to her.
Abiola, a professor of law, was arraigned alongside her domestic aide, Rebecca Enechido, yesterday. In a viral video clip, the officer was seen seated on the floor asking to be taken to hospital for medical attention.
The police accused Abiola of attempt to commit culpable homicide and intentional insult to cause a breach of trust. In court yesterday, the professor was denied bail while the matter was adjourned till October 5, 2022. The magistrate also ordered that she should be remanded in Suleja Prison pending the adjourned date.
Earlier, Abiola had denied assaulting the officer, saying it was strange that the inspector general of police would forcefully violate the fundamental rights and liberties of a distinguished law- abiding citizen and proceed to forcefully take her pictures and maliciously publish same in the print and electronic media in this nascent democratic dispensation.
In a statement issued on her behalf by the Afro-European Lawyers League, she said: “Our attention has been drawn to a fallacious malicious defamatory publication against our respected alumnus of the National Institute of Policy and Security Studies, Professor Zainab Duke MNI alleging assault on one of her police orderlies. We categorically state that this is not true and nothing could be further from the truth. For the records, our respected revered Professor Zainab has never assaulted anybody anywhere at any time. It is not in her character.
The statement said; “On the 20th of April 2022 the IGP approved the revalidation and deployment of police orderlies to our leader based on the fact that she is the chief legal consultant to the Nigeria Police and has her office at the force headquarters, Abuja. The police consequently assigned a female police officer who was among the perpetrators of violence against innocent Nigerian citizens during the ENDSARS imbroglio. Consequent upon discovery of her orderly’s involvement in police brutality against Nigerians that Professor Zainab rejected the posting of a brutal officer and returned the said orderly back to force headquarters to her bosses and told her bye-bye
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