The police force, Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory are the 1st to 3rd Respondents respectively.
Katsina State-born businessman and critic of the Nigerian government, Mahdi Shehu has sued the Nigeria Police Force, the Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory for detaining him for 11 days earlier this month.
The police force, Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner of Police in the Federal Capital Territory are the 1st to 3rd Respondents respectively.
Mr Shehu announced this on his X (formerly Twitter) handle and shared a copy of the motion filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja.
He described the petition which led to his arrest as spurious and defenceless.
He said he was asking the court to grant him N100 million in damages for what he considered unlawful detention.
He wrote: “Ask for N100M damages/ compensation. Hearing slated for 28th Feb 2024.”
Shehu was arrested on February 6 following a petition from the law office of a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN) on behalf of the former minister and his family.
M. I. Abubakar, the lawyer representing Mahdi Shehu, a Katsina State-born businessman and social critic, had said his client’s arrest and detention by the police might be connected to efforts by a former Minister of Justice and Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami (SAN), and some members of Muhammadu Buhari's immediate past government to silence him for demanding accountability from them.
SaharaReporters on Tuesday, February 6 broke the news about Mahdi Shehu’s arrest and detention by the police in Abuja.
Sources told SaharaReporters that Shehu was arrested following a petition from the law office of Malami on behalf of the former minister and his family.
Reacting to the detention in a press statement made available to SaharaReporters on Wednesday, the following day, the lawyer said his client was accused of attempting to extort N500 million from Mr Malami and that the police said that led to the arrest of Shehu on Tuesday.
However, the lawyer said the main reason why Malami and others who served in Buhari’s administration wanted Shehu to be detained was to stop his persistent social media posts about the lack of transparency and accountability during the former President’s administration.
The statement read in part: “Yesterday, 6th February, 2024 in the afternoon, our Client, MUHAMMAD MAHDI SHEHU, a renowned Kaduna-based social critic/activist, non-commercial whistleblower and successful businessman was arrested and detained in Abuja by the Inspector- General of Police (IGP) Monitoring Unit ostensibly on a petition written by A. A. MALAMI, SAN & CO. (the law firm of the immediate past Attorney-General of the Federation) for and on behalf of ABUBAKAR MALAMI, SAN the said immediate past AGF and his family.
“Although, the petition made allegations of hacking and compromise of emails and Bank accounts of the former AGF and some members of his family as well as an attempt to open a fake bank account in the name of a member of the family and extortion of about N 20,000,000.00 (twenty million naira) from a member of the family by a syndicate, no mention was made of the name of MUHAMMAD MAHDI SHEHU in the Petition.
“However, the Police claimed to have arrested Muhammad Madhi Shehu in his hotel room in Abuja based on a tip by ABUBAKAR MALAMI, SAN relating to an alleged WhatsApp chat between him and MADHI SHEHU claiming that the latter attempted to extort N500,000,000.00 (five hundred million naira) from him.”