Kassim Abiola and Aliyu Abiola, two sons of late Chief MKO Abiola, the acclaimed winner of the annulled June 12, 1993 presidential election, have approached a Lagos State High Court, Ikeja Division seeking N100m in damages following their arrest and detention over a robbery incident at their father’s residence on September 2. In addition to the N100m exemplary damages, the plaintiffs are also demanding an apology, for the “wanton and grave violation” of their fundamental rights. The case was adjourned to October 5 after the judge directed that the Commissioner of Police be notified of the suit and ordered that the file be re-assigned to a non – vacation Judge, for hearing.
The duo told Justice Abiola Soladoye on Friday, that, they were unlawfully arrested and detained at the Special Anti-Robbery Squad in Ikeja, following a complaint by their step-mum, Adebisi Abiola, after the robbery incident. They averred that their rights to personal liberty, dignity of person, privacy, as well as right to freedom of movement were violated. They cited the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, CP Hakeem O. Odumuso, as the sole respondent in the suit, which they filed through their lawyer, Chief Mike Ozekhome, (SAN).
Specifically, they prayed the court to declare that “the arrest without warrant and subsequent and continuous dehumanization and detention of the Applicants since September 2, by operatives of the respondent on the alleged complaint of one Mrs. Adebisi Abiola, is illegal, unlawful, and wrongful.”
In a 21-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Ubong Ikon, a litigation clerk in Chief Ozekhome’s Chamber, the applicants, alleged that police officers forcibly broke into their homes and arrested them with seven other people.
Court documents also revealed that though the police have conducted several searches at their apartments, nothing incriminating or connecting them with any alleged stolen items belonging to their step mum was found inside the premises they share with many other persons. The plaintiffs told the court that they were discriminatorily singled out following a complaint by their step mum, who accused them of complicity in the robbery, ostensibly because they were not her biological children.
Describing the suspicion of their alleged involvement in the robbery as “completely false and malicious in its entirety”, the duo said the allegation was “meant to disparage their persons and their immediate nuclear family, not being biological children of the Complainant. The Applicants were tortured, totally humiliated, dehumanized and terrorized, with a crowd of people swarming the premises to witness the ugly scene in the home of MKO Abiola, the former Presidential aspirant of the Social Democratic Party.”
Insisting that they were illegally arrested without warrant, the applicants maintained that police lacked the constitutional right to keep them in custody for more than 24 hours without an order of a court of competent jurisdiction. The deponent further averred that the applicants were also students that were about to travel abroad to the United States of America for further international studies.
“That their being singled out for continuous detention and torment is simply because they are not the biological children of the Complainant, Mrs Adebisi Abiola, as her own children and aides staying in the same premises were left untouched. That the Applicants are in a very pitiable condition of mental agony and psychological depression, having not been in such an environment before and especially as they insist they are innocent of culpability in the alleged robbery.
“That the Applicants are ready and willing to stand trial if and whenever they are arraigned for any offence since investigation has long been concluded by the Respondent’s operatives, but are merely being subjected to ridicule, harassment, degrading treatment and torture,” the complaint added.
