Nigeria’s leading human rights lawyer, Femi Falana (SAN), plans to
sue the police for N1b for the detention of a Nigerian businessman based
in South Africa, Bonny Okonkwo.
247 U Reports said Okonkwo, was
held since mid July incommunicado and tortured several times at the
Garki Police Station in Abuja and that he was not released till Monday,
July 31, 2013, following a court order secured by Mr Falana.
The
Constitution prohibits the detention of any person beyond 24 hours
without court trial unless the person is suspected of committing a
serious crime like murder.
“Defamation
is a civil offence on Nigeria’s statute books”, noted Adaeze Ekwueme, a
Lagos-based legal practitioner who joined the Falana team to enforce
Okonkwo’s fundamental human rights after 16 days in detention.“It
is, therefore, very strange in the first place that the police should
be involved in the matter between Comrade Okonkwo and Offor”.
Okonkwo
incurred Offor’s wrath for expressing an opinion expressed in an
internet forum of mostly Oraifite people of Anambra State to the effect
that Offor’s recent $1.3m donation to Rotary International for polio
eradication should have been channeled to the development of their local
community or used to pay off some people whose funds were trapped in
the defunct Afex Bank owned by Offor.
Ekwueme accused the police
of “acting not like agents of the law but like those of a wealthy
government contractor since the inception of the Okonkwo-Offor dispute.”
“The
police chained citizen Okonkwo’s hands and legs and put him in the boot
of a Toyota Prado vehicle and drove him all the way from Lagos to
Abuja”, she stated, adding that the international businessman was denied
access to his BlackBerry phone, travelling documents and family
members.
Ogala quoted Falana as saying that “it is revolting to
good conscience that this primitive and sadistic treatment could be
meted out to a law abiding citizen and social activist simply on the
strength of a petition to the Inspector General of Police written by one
Godson Ugochukwu of Fortress Chambers who was acting on his client’s
(Offor’s) instructions” .
Though Okonkwo has been granted bail by
Chief Magistrate Kabir Lamido of Dutse Alhaji in Kubwa in the Federal
Capital Territory, after producing a surety with a landed property in
Abuja and a community leader to testify to his good character, his
passport is still with the police.
“This is obviously a deliberate attempt to frustrate his international business which he runs from South Africa”, argued Ogala.
.Culled from 247U report
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