Police Detention:Former government officials in Benue sue Nigerian Police over alleged illegal detention at the Force headquarters in Abuja.

For­mer gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials in the im­me­di­ate past ad­min­is­tra­tion in Benue State have dragged the Nige­ria Po­lice to court over al­leged il­le­gal de­ten­tion.



Daily Trust re­ports that the of­fi­cials in­cludes, the for­mer com­mis­sioner of fi­nance, Mr. Omadachi Ok­lo­bia, for­mer spe­cial ad­viser on lo­cal gov­ern­ment and chief­taincy af­fairs, Prince Solomon Wombo and eight others, who were de­tained a week ago in Makurdi at the Force head­quar­ters in Abuja.

They prayed the court in a mo­tion on no­tice for an in­ter­locu­tory in­junc­tion to re­strain the po­lice and other del­e­gated au­thor­i­ties un­der same force from fur­ther, “ha­rass­ment, in­vi­ta­tion, ar­rest, de­ten­tion and ob­tain­ing state­ments from them.”

In a suit, FHC/ABJ/05/704/201 dated Septem­ber 9, 2016, and filed by coun­sels led by In­no­cent Daa’gba and A J Mbat­sav­due, the for­mer of­fi­cials are con­tend­ing amongst other is­sues the re­port of Jus­tice Elizabeth Kpo­jime Probe panel, which the po­lice “Spe­cial In­ves­ti­ga­tion Panel” set up by the In­spec­tor Gen­eral of Po­lice based its find­ings upon to ar­rest, de­tain and ex­tract state­ments from them.

They ar­gued that the re­port of the probe panel was still been chal­lenged at a court in Makurdi, won­der­ing why the law en­force­ment agency were now ha­rass­ing them.