The chairman and director of a custom license agency and an Agro Allied Farming company, Hensmor Nigeria Limited, have slammed a one billion naira lawsuit against the immediate past Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Ziakede Patrick Akpobolokemi, over their alleged unlawful arrest and detention by police.
The chairman and director of a custom license agency and an Agro Allied Farming company, Hensmor Nigeria Limited, have slammed a one billion naira lawsuit against the immediate past Director-General of Nigerian Maritime Administration and Safety Agency (NIMASA), Ziakede Patrick Akpobolokemi, over their alleged unlawful arrest and detention by police.
The company’s chairman, Dr. Henry Omorodion, and its director, Patricia Okereke, accuse Mr. Akpobolokemi of instigating what they say were unlawful police actions.
Joined as respondents in the ensuing legal warfare are NIMASA, the Lagos State Commissioner of Police, the state’s Deputy Commissioner of Police, and the officer in charge of the Legal Department of Criminal Investigation, as first, third, fourth, and fifth respondents respectively.
Dr. Omorodion, Patricia Okereke and their company, Hensmor Nigeria Limited, in an originating summons filed before a Federal high court in Lagos by their lawyer Jide Zaid, are demanding for the sum of N1 billion from the respondents jointly and severally in respect of their alleged unlawful arrest and detention.
The applicants say that in a previous case in March 2006 they obtained a judgment against NIMASA for cumulative damages in the sum of N6.8 billion arising from a ship named M.T. Agbonmein that was owned by Hensmor Nigeria. It was not until February of 2012, Ms. Okereke averrs, that a stay of execution on the judgment was finally to be lifted according to a new court order. The N6.8 billion was to be deposited in an interest yielding account in the name of Chief Registrar of the Federal High Court with a deadline of 14 days, but NIMASA refused to obey the order, filing an appeal that was soon struck down.
After exhausting its final options for appeals, NIMASA was finally forced to provide the sum of N6.8 billion for the applicants in July of 2012. Yet in spite the consent of NIMASA's banker, FCMB, to comply with the court, the bank however treated the said order with levity and contempt, refusing to cooperate. Consequently, in light of the disobedience of the said order, Hensmor Nigeria Limited obtained the leave of the court on September 25, 2012, to commence contempt proceedings against the principal officers of the bank.
All steps taken by Hensmor Nigeria Limited and its directors to enforce the judgment from the suit against NIMASA were done in total compliance with the subsisting order of the court and due process of law.
However, the event took another dimension when the Lagos State Deputy Commissioner of Police, acting on the order of the Commissioner of Police, invited Dr. Omorodion and other directors of Hensmor Nigeria Limited for an interview with the officer in charge of the Legal Department of the Police, through an invitation letter dated November 8, 2012. She stated that the said police invitation was informed following a petition titled "Sustained threats to our bankers and funds of the Federal Government of Nigeria in our custody by a company known as Hensmor Nigeria Limited" written by Mr. Akpobolokemi, the immediate past Director General of NIMASA, accusing them of engaging in the acts of self-help and conduct likely to cause breach of public peace by threatening his life and his bankers in order to forcefully collect the sum of N6.8 billion, property of the Nigerian government, despite the pendency of their appeal against the judgment.
Ms. Okereke also stated further that Akpobolokemi was boasting in the media and other public fora that he would use all the machineries of the state power at his disposal, including the police and armed forces, to deal with her and other applicants by frustrating their efforts to obtain the money owed to them. At Mr. Akpobolokemi's instigation, Ms. Okereke claims she was arrested, cautioned, and temporarily detained by the State Criminal Investigation Department of Lagos State, and then released on bail bond on self-recognition.
However, NIMASA and Mr. Akpobolokemi urged the court to refuse the applicants and at the same time denied almost all of their accusations.
NIMASA and its former Director General in their counter-affidavit conveyed by NIMASA’s legal officer, Albert Nakpodia, stated that both NIMASA and Mr. Akpobolokemi were not part of the proceedings before the Federal High Court in Lagos, and that Hensmor has no valid licenses to operate the businesses it claimed to be engaged in.
Mr. Nakpodia also stated that NIMASA and its Managing Director never disobeyed any court order but exercised their constitutional rights to challenge the order at the Court of Appeal, adding that the Court of Appeal has since stayed all proceedings in the high court on the subject matter. They however admitted that their original application for a stay was struck out, and that on May 17, 2012, NIMASA had re-filed the application seeking for a stay while their appeal was processed.
Both NIMASA and Mr. Akpoblokemi also stated that Ms. Okereke was not known to them, and added that the second applicant, Dr. Omorodion, was never arrested by the police for any issue relating to the case.
Therefore, they urged the court to dismiss the applicants’ suit and pay substantial costs for the inconvenience.
NIMASA also wrote a letter to the chief judge requesting that the case be reassigned to another court.