Dr Fabian Ihekweme, a former Commissioner for Foreign and International Affairs in Imo, has filed a N5 million suit against the Nigerian Police Force at the Federal High Court in Abuja over alleged unlawful arrest and detention.
Ihekweme, who was a commissioner in the first term of Gov. Hope Uzodinma, filed the suit marked: FHC/ABI/CS/1809/2024 through his lawyer, Kingdom Okere on Monday.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the fundamental rights enforcement suit, dated and filed on Dec. 2, listed the Nigerian Police Force and Commissioner of Police (CP), Imo State Command, as 1st and 2nd respondents.
The applicant seeks an order of perpetual injunction restraining the police from further arresting, threat of adoption, detention, intimidation, assault and harassing him over frivolous and unsubstantiated allegation concerning his fundamental rights to freedom of expression.
He also wants an order of the court compelling and directing the defendants to immediately release or grant him bail, pending investigation or charge him to court, as stipulated in Sections 35(4) and (5) and 36 (1) of the 1999 Constitution.
He seeks “a declaration that his arrest on November 28, 2024 in Abuja in most strange, intimidating, threatening, embarrassing, bizarre and gestapo manner by the Police in Imo State Command, who assaulted him, constitutes an infringement of his fundamental human rights and that, his continuous detention by the police amounts to the violation of his fundamental human rights.”
Ihekweme further urged the court to declare that, denying him access to his team of lawyers by the police since Nov. 28, when he was arrested in Abuja and taken to Owerri, violated his fundamental human rights.
He, therefore, sought an order awarding the sum of N5 million as damages against the CP for his alleged harassment, assault and illegal detention.
In an affidavit of urgency deposed to by the wife of the applicant, Mrs Excel Ihekweme, she said her husband is managing a severe health condition and his continuous detention without access to medicare would worsen his health condition and endanger his life.
She averred “that the applicant is now suffering double jeopardy of unlawful detention and imminent health risk that could endanger his life.”
She said that the constitution provides for rights to fair trial within a reasonable time.
Mrs Ihekweme said her husband ought to have been released on administrative bail or charged to court, at least two days after his arrest as provided by the constitution.
She said the conduct of the respondents was arbitrary, illegal, unconstitutional, harsh, oppressive and void.
The suit is yet to be assigned to a judge as at the time of the report.(NAN).
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