Rights Violation: Company Directors Slam N10bn Suit Against IGP, Five Others

Ibrahim Tenimu and Jemima Shehu, two directors of Paz Oil Nigeria Limited, have taken the Inspector General of Police (IGP), the Nigeria Police Force, the Kwara State Police Commissioner, and three others to court for claimed violations of their fundamental rights.

Superintendent Sadiq Sule, Dr. Kamoru Yusuf, and his firm, Kam Steel Integrated Limited are also included as respondents in the FHC/ABJ/CS/1278/2023 complaint.

On behalf of the two Directors, Akintoye Balogun filed the fundamental rights enforcement suit at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

In particular, the Plaintiffs alleged in their court proceedings that the 5th Respondent, Dr. Kamoru Yusuf, and his company, have allegedly used the Police, specifically the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of Kwara State Command, to intimidate, harass, witchhunt, and oppress the directors of Paz Oil Nigeria Ltd and their family members.

Among other things, the Directors are asking for “an order directing the Respondents jointly and severally to pay to the Applicants the sum of N10 billion only as exemplary damages for the wanton and grave violation of their fundamental rights, without following the due process of law.”l

They want a declaration that the serial acts of intimidation, incessant  invitations, and persistent threats by the 1st to 4th Respondents (the Police) to invite, witch-hunt, arrest, detain, embarrass, and humiliate the Applicants herein, on the alleged prompting and instigation of the 5th Respondent (Dr. Kamoru Yusuf), amount to a violation of their  fundamental rights as enshrined in Sections 35, 37, 39, and  41 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999, as altered, and Articles 5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 12 & 14  of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Ratification and Enforcement) Act, Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria, 2004.

More so, the Applicants are seeking a perpetual injunction restraining the Respondents from the continuous invitations, witch-hunting, arrest and attempts to arrest, detention, embarrassment, and humiliation of the applicants herein.

In an affidavit fed before the court, the Applicants claimed that rather than pursue a civil action against them, Dr. Kamoru and his company have been allegedly using the police to witch hunt and arrest them at all costs for a purely civil transaction.

“That the violent invasion, viet armis of the 1st Applicant’s residence at Plot 1, Ibrahim Shehu Tenimu Close, Gwarimpa, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, by operatives of the 1st to 4th Respondents, at the instigation of the 5th Respondent, on the 1st and the 2nd of August 2023 to arrest the 1st and 2nd Applicants, without a warrant or a court order to that effect, is illegal, unconstitutional and constitutes a violation of the Applicants’ fundamental rights to privacy and dignity of human person.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.