A High Court sitting in Akure, Ondo State has slammed a sum of N250,000 fine on the Nigeria Police Force over unlawful arrest and intimidation of a commercial motorcyclist in the state, Daniel Olorunyomi.
In the suit number: AK/5M/2017, two police officers, one Corporal Kehinde and Mr Ajayi Adeboye of the A Division Police Station, Akure, were accused of extorting Olorunyomi in 2016, while a human rights activist from Awareness Against Social Vices Initiative (AASVI), Akinsiku Akintan, dragged the police before the High Court.
Akintan, who prayed the court to award the sum of N1million as general damages to Olorunyomi, lamented that the respondents, Ajayi and Kehinde, usually sent officers to carry out indiscriminate and unlawful arrests of motorcyclists to extort money from them.
He told the court that Ajayi insisted that “before he would release the motorcycle, the second respondent demanded for N3, 000 which was negotiated to N2, 500.”
He added that the conversation was recorded and that at the station, he was not requested to make any statement, and no entry of events leading to the seizure of the motorcycle was entered.
Akintan, who was also awarded N2,000 as cost in his favour, noted that the litigation was meant to pursue unrepentant harassment and intimidation of the general public by law enforcement officers, especially the police.
The trial judge, Olanrewaju Akeredolu, while giving his judgment, declared that the arrest of the applicant on December 10, 2016 and confiscation of his Haojue motorcycle with registration number ABG 876 QE without any justifiable reason was unconstitutional.
Akeredolu admitted that the detention violated the rights of the applicant to freedom of movement, right to personal liberty, right to own property as enshrined in the provisions of Section 35, 41 and 44 of the Nigerian constitution, as amended.
“I hereby order the respondents, jointly and severally to pay the sum of N250,000 only as general damages for the unlawful and unconstitutional arrest of the applicant on December 10, 2016 and detention/confiscation of the applicant’s Haojue Motorcycle with Registration No. ABG 876 QE from the 10th December, 2016 to 14th December, 2016 without any justifiable reason,” the judge ruled.