The court held that arresting and parading the widow in a nightgown was illegal
Justice Modupe Osho-Adebiyi of the Federal Capital Territory High Court in Gudu, Abuja, has ordered the Inspector-General of Police to pay N50 million damages to the widow of the late Chief M. K. O. Abiola, Prof Zainab Duke-Abiola, for violating her fundamental rights.
The court held that arresting and parading the widow in a nightgown was illegal.
Delivering judgment on Thursday in a fundamental human rights enforcement Suit No: FCT/HC/CV/2431/2023, the court also ordered the police to apologise to her in two national newspapers.
Other defendants in the fundamental human rights suit are the Nigeria Police Force, Inspector Teju Moses and Engineer Ibrahim (son of former IGP Usman Alkali Baba).
SaharaReporters reported in January 2023 that the police disclosed that Zainab Duke-Abiola had a case to answer over the alleged assault of Inspector Teju Moses, an orderly attached to her.
A viral video clip shows Inspector Moses bleeding and asking to be taken to the hospital for medical attention.
“She told her boys to kill me,” Moses said incoherently as she spoke to her direct boss on the phone.
Speaking to SaharaReporters, the late politician’s wife denied assaulting the officer whom she described as her former police orderly.
She added that Zainab boasted that there would be no consequences as she was a friend of the wife of the then-Inspector General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba.
However, Zainab who described her detention as a breach of her rights, had filed a suit against the Nigeria Police Force, NPF and the Inspector-General of Police.
The son of the IGP, Ibrahim, and her former police orderly, Teju Moses were joined in the suit.
She accused the police of arresting her while she was in a nightgown and torturing her for days without trial.
But Olumuyiwa Adejobi, Force Public Relations Officer, in a statement said the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, had ordered the prosecution of the human rights activist and her domestic staff members, including Rebecca Enechido.
She was subsequently arraigned before a magistrates’ court in Wuse, Abuja, which remanded her in Suleja Prison in Niger State.
Duke-Abiola also accused one of the chief magistrates at the Wuse Magistrates’ Court, Federal Capital Territory and the Nigeria Police Force of conspiring and conniving to remand her in prison.
The police had said, “The Nigeria Police Force wishes to state emphatically that Prof. Zainab Duke Abiola who was alleged of complicity in the grievous assault of a female Police Officer, Inspector Teju Moses on Tuesday 20th September 2022 at her residence in Garki, Abuja, along with her domestic staff including the housemaid, one Rebecca Enechido, and a male suspect currently at large, has a case to answer with respect to the allegations.”
But the court “declared that the detention of the applicant (Zainab Duke-Abiola) from the 20th day of September 2022 to the 23rd of September 2022, without arraigning her before a court of competent jurisdiction is a violation of the applicant’s right to personal liberty under Section 35 of the constitution and is therefore unlawful and unconstitutional”.
It also ruled that arresting her in a “nightgown without giving her the opportunity to dress decently is an infringement of her right to personal dignity”.
The court described the action of the police as debasing and infringement of her right to personal dignity.
"In the circumstances, the sum of N50,000,000.00 only is awarded to the applicant as compensation against the first, second and fourth respondents jointly,” the court ruled.
It also ordered the respondents to tender a public apology to the applicant in “two national daily newspapers”.