A Federal High Court, Abuja, has restrained the Inspector General of Police and four others from further harassing, intimidating, humiliating and detaining an Abuja-based housewife and her in-law.
The court gave the order in a ruling on an ex-parte motion argued by their counsel, Akintayo Balogun on behalf of Mrs. Esther Stephanie Shehu and Mr. David Isaac Kpanaki (1st and 2nd applicants) seeking an order restraining the IGP and four others from carrying out the acts complained of in their joint suit marked FHC/ABJ/CS/1279/2023, which has the IGP, Nigerian Police Force (NPF) Commissioner of Police, Kwara state, Superintendent Sadiq Sule and Dr. Kamoru Yusuf as respondents.
In a certified true copy of an enrollment order dated October 4, 2023, the trial Judge, Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon, ordered the parties to maintain the status quo ante bellum pending the determination of the substantive case.
The court further ordered their production in court for the Respondents to show cause why they should not be admitted to bail.
In the substantive suit, Mrs. Shehu and her in-law, Mr. Kpanaki, are seeking the enforcement of their fundamental rights against the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and the four others over their alleged unlawful arrest, dehumanization and detention without a court warrant.
They are also seeking an order of the court declaring the actions of the respondents illegal, an order for their immediate and unconditional release and an order restraining the respondents from further arresting, dehumanizing and detaining them, among others.
Alternatively, the applicants are demanding an order for their admittance to bail on self-recognition or other favourable terms, an order for the publications of a public apology to them by the respondents in three national dailies and payment of N10 billion compensation to them as exemplary damages.
A supporting affidavit deposed to by Blessing Ijomah, Litigation Secretary in the law firm of Oxygen Chambers, (Counsel to the applicants said, on August 2, 2023, around 8:30 am while they were at their home at Gwarimpa, FCT, Abuja, police officers invaded their house in a gestapo manner to arrest the husband of the 1st applicant, Mr. Ibrahim Shehu, but did not meet him at home.
They alleged that his planned arrest was instigated and sponsored by Kamoru Yusuf (the 5th respondent), who was involved in a civil business transaction with Mr. Shehu.
“The officers promised to return later in the day to pick up her husband, or they will have her arrested in his place,” the affidavit said.
The same day, around 3:00 pm, the officers came back to the house of the applicants and when they did not meet Esther’s husband again, they arrested her and Mr. Kpanaki in place of Mr Shehu.
They protested their arrest as no court warrant was shown to them and that there had never been any transaction between them and Mr Yusuf, but the officers turned deaf ears to their protest and took them away in handcuff to Ilorin, Kwara State, in a dehumanising condition.
They were detained in the police cell from August 2 to August 4 before they were subsequently charged before a Magistrate Court in Ilorin on allegations bordering on cheating, screening an offender and obstruction of police from discharging their lawful duties.
“They were thereafter remanded at the Mandala Correctional Centre, Ilorin, Kwara State by the Order of His Worship, Ibrahim Muhammad, who refused to grant them bail despite being offences that are bailable.
The applicants, who said the acts of the police and the other respondents amounted to an infringement of their fundamental right as guaranteed under the Constitution and the African Charter, approached the court for enforcement of their fundamental rights.
Meanwhile, the matter has been adjourned till October 10 for a hearing and for the respondents to produce the Applicants in court and show cause why they should not be admitted to bail.
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