Court Dismisses Rights Breach Suit Against IGP, Others

LAGOS – An Epe Division of Lagos State High Court has dismissed a fundamental rights enforce­ment suit filed against the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) and some of his officers, by three indigenes of Ibeju-Lek­ki Local Government, Lagos State.

The presiding judge, Justice Wasiu Animahun, dismissed the applicants’ suit after perus­ing all the processes filed by the parties and considered submis­sions made by their counsel frivolous and lacking in merit.

Justice Animahun also awarded a cost of N250, 000, against the applicants, jointly and severally, in favour of IGP and five of his men.

The applicants in the suit marked EPD/11589M­FHR/2021, filed by their lawyer, Ufomba Chinemerem, are Ka­milu Ibilola, Ismaila Ibilola and Nurudeen Adegbose.

While those listed as first to six respondents were: the IGP; the AIG, ForceC.I.D, Alagbon, Lagos; the Officer-In-Charge, Special Enquiry Bureau, (ForceC.I.D), Alagbon, Lagos; Commissioner of Police, La­gos State; the Area Command­er, Area J Command, Elemoro, Lagos and ASP Chidi Njoku. And Lekan Asumo; Jimoh Hassan and Sharafa Hassan, listed as seventh to ninth re­spondents.

The applicants in their suit brought before the court pursuant to Order 2 Rules 1, 2, 3 and 5 of the fundamental rights (enforcement procedure) Rules 2009, and sections 34(1), 35(1), 37, 39(1), 40, 42(1) and 44 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended), asked the court for a declaration that the criminal complaint of the seventh to ninth respondents to the first to sixth respondents against them on allegations bordering pure­ly on title to land, oral history, succession arising from title to a portion of their family land at Igando Village, Ibeju-Lekki Lo­cal Government Area of Lagos State, is baseless, unfounded and malicious.

Countering the applicants’ suit, the IGP and his men, rep­resented by Barrister Morufu Animashaun, a legal officer at ForceCID, Alagbon, who filed and argued a 13 paragraph-af­fidavit deposed to by Mojisola Balogun, an Assistant Inspec­tion of Police (ASP), asked the court to dismiss the suit for being frivolous and lacking in merit, as it was aimed to to stall and frustrate the investigation of criminal complaints against them.