A Bauchi High Court has ruled in
defence of the fundamental human rights of a man.
According to Today ng, Bauchi High
Court has awarded N1.2 million damages to the Inspector General of Police (IGP)
and the Bauchi State Police Commissioner for the Illegal detention and breach
of the fundamental rights of a Bauchi based politician, Nasiru Ibrahim Darazo.
Justice Gurama Mahmoud who presided
over the court in his ruling on Thursday stated that the arrest and detention
of Nasiru Ibrahim Darazo was unconstitutional and an infringement on his human
rights as a citizen of the country.
The court further restrained the IGP
and his agents from proceeding further with the arrest and detention of the
applicant.
Reacting to the ruling, Summi Zakka
Bayero, Counsel to Nasiru Ibrahim Darazo, declared that the court is the last
resort and hope of the common man, adding that the ruling was also a testimony
that those in authority cannot misuse their authority and go scot-free.
Bayero had prayed the court to
enforce the ruling in order to serve as a relief to his client who has suffered
mental and emotional tortures by the acts of the respondents.
It would be recalled that Nasiru
Ibrahim Darazo had sometime in 2018 sued the Inspector-General of Police and
the state Commissioner of Police before the state High Court demanding N50
million as damages over alleged illegal detention and violation of his human
right.
Barrister Joseph O. Bichi, Counsel
to the complainant, had asked the court to declare that the arrest and
detention of his client by the Police between August 11 and 12, 2018,
constituted a gross violation of his fundamental right to dignity, liberty and
fair hearing guaranteed under Section 34, 35 and 36 of the 1999 Constitution as
amended and Article 5 and 6 on Humans and People’s Rights Act Cap 10 Laws of
the Federation of Nigeria 1990.
The counsel also sought the court to
grant him an order restraining the respondents or their agents from further
arresting or detaining his client in any other manner interfering with his
fundamental rights which is contrary to the law.
In the affidavit he sworn to, Ibrahim
Darazo alleged that the respondents in a team called the Inspector General of
Police Squad from Abuja in conjunction with some policemen from the Bauchi
State Command came to his house heavily armed and forcefully seized his mobile
phone, and arrested him.
He further said that the policemen
whisked him away without allowing him to tell his family that he was arrested
or being taken away by the Nigeria Police and after searching his car and
nothing incriminating was found inside the car, they seized the car key and
detained him.
Ibrahim Darazo also said that when
he demanded to know the reason he was arrested, one of the officers told him
that he has no right to know why he was arrested because his arrest was ordered
from above while all his pleas to the respondents to give him his phone to
enable him inform his wives and friends to let them know that he was arrested
was vehemently denied.
He further said that around 10 p.m.
in the night of the arrest, one Samaila Idris Esq, whom he met while in
detention, informed his counsel and when the counsel came all efforts to get
him released on bail were turned down by the respondents, thereby making him to
spend the night in detention without knowing the offence he committed.
Ibrahim Darazo who said that he
spent the night under detention at the Bauchi State Police Command without
knowing the crime he committed, stated that on Sunday around 5 o’clock in the
evening, the Assistant Commissioner of Police in charge of CID called him and
asked him to go home but with his mobile phone still withheld which the Police
later returned to him two days after his release.
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