Abiola’s Sons Sue Lagos Police Commissioner Over Unlawful Detention, Demand N100m Compensation

Abiola’s Sons Sue Lagos Police Commissioner Over Unlawful Detention as it was reveal that suspected robbers raided the Lagos mansion of the late Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola (M.K.O Abiola) and went away with property worth millions of naira.

Lagos State Police Commissioner, Hakeem Odumosu.

Two sons of late Chief Moshood Abiola, winner of the June 12, 1993, presidential election, Kassim and Aliyu, who were arrested and detained over a robbery incident that took place at their father’s residence on September 2, have approached the High Court of Lagos State in the Ikeja Judicial Division for the enforcement of their fundamental rights.

The robbers were said to have assessed the Toyin Street Crescent residence of the late politician through a canal and jumped over the high perimeter fence into the compound.

Lagos State Commissioner of Police disclosed that some suspects including domestic staff were arrested in connection with the incident.

But in a fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), the duo said they were arrested at their homes by the police in Lagos over a robbery incident that was said to have occurred inside premises they shared with many other persons.

The applicants told the court that they were discriminatorily singled out as a result of a complaint by their stepmother, Mrs Adebisi Abiola, who accused them of complicity in the robbery.

They told the court that though police had since conducted several searches at their apartments, nothing incriminating or connecting them with any alleged stolen item belonging to their stepmother was found.

The Lagos State Commissioner of Police was cited as the sole respondent in the suit the applicants filed through Ozekhome.

Specifically, they prayed the court to declare that, “The arrest without warrant and subsequent and continuous dehumanization and detention of the Applicants since the 2nd September 2020, by operatives of the respondent on the alleged Complaint of one Mrs Adebisi Abiola, is illegal, unlawful, wrongful and constitutes a blatant violation of the applicants’ fundamental rights as enshrined in Section 35 (1) (4) & (6), 37, 41 (1), 44 (1) and 46(1) of the 1999 constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, as altered, Sections 2, 3(1) (2), 17(1) (2), 18 (1) (2) (3), 19, 21 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Law, Lagos State, 2015, and Articles 5, 6 & 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights Ratification and Enforcement Act Cap A9, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.”

Aside from demanding an apology, the applicants equally asked for an order to compel the respondent to pay them N100m as exemplary damages for the “wanton and grave violation” of their fundamental rights.