Kassim and Aliyu Abiola, sons of the acclaimed winner of the June 12, 1993 Presidential election, late Bashorun M.K.O. Abiola, have filed a N100 million fundamental rights suit against the Lagos state Commissioner of Police over their detention.
The suit filed through their lawyer and human rights activist, Chief Mike Ozekhome has the Lagos State Commissioner of Police as sole respondent.
In a 21 paragraphed affidavit deposed to by Ubong Ikon, a Litigation Clerk in Chief Ozekhome’s Chamber, Kassim and Aliyu prayed the court to declare that “their arrest without warrant and subsequent detention since September 2, 2020, by operatives of the respondent on the alleged complaint of one Mrs. Adebisi Abiola, is illegal, unlawful, wrongful and constitutes a blatant violation of the their fundamental rights as enshrined in Section 35 (1) (4) & (6), 37, 41 (1), 44 (1) and 46(1) of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as altered, Sections 2, 3(1) (2), 17(1) (2), 18 (1) (2) (3), 19, 21 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law, Lagos State, 2015, and Articles 5, 6 & 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Ratification and Enforcement Act Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.
While alleging that they were discriminatorily singled out as a result of a complaint by their step-mum who accused them of complicity in the robbery, Kassim and Aliyu asked for an order of the court to compel the Lagos State Commissioner of Police to pay them N100 Million as exemplary damages for the “wanton and grave violation” of their fundamental rights.
When the case came up for hearing yesterday before the Ikeja High Court, lawyers to Kassim and Aliyu passionately prayed the court to grant bail to the detainees due to their poor health and lengthy detention by SARS since September 2, 2020. They told the court that they are also students that are about to travel abroad for further international studies.
Kassim and Aliyu Abiola described the suspicion of their alleged involvement in the robbery as “completely false and malicious” and that the allegation was “meant to disparage their persons and their immediate nuclear family, not being biological children of their step-mum, Mrs. Adebisi Abiola
They told the court that though, Police had since conducted several searches at their apartments, nothing incriminating or connecting them with any alleged stolen item belonging to their step mum was found.
The Judge however directed that the Commissioner of Police who is the sole Defendant in the suit be put on notice.
Source: THE WILL