BY BENJAMIN OMOIKE
A businesswoman, Mrs. Uche Ukpaka, has accused the Federal Government of using the Special Fraud Unit, SFU, of the Nigeria Police unlawfully to detain her husband, Mr. Ignatus Ukpaka, over a civil dispute pertaining to land in Banana Island, which a Lagos State High Court has declared him as the owner.
She said her husband, who is suffering an underlying ailment, was arrested in Lagos by the Police on March 8, 2022, under the pretext of executing a warrant of arrest for a criminal charge largely over the ownership of that same land which is the 3rd time FG is bringing the charge before the Federal High Court Lagos.
She stated that the Federal Government had brought a criminal charge over the land before the Federal High Court in 2014 against her husband and that the court declared the charge illegal, unconstitutional and discharged him.
She further stated that surprisingly, the Federal Government in 2018 brought another criminal charge over same land against her husband, and the court in 2019, dismissed the charge, declaring it unconstitutional and unlawful and also discharged her husband.
Mrs Ukpaka said that to settle the issue of the ownership of the land, the husband sued the Federal Government and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC, at Lagos High Court. According to her, after five years of litigation between the parties, the Lagos High Court presided over by Justice Oyekan-Abdullia, in judgment delivered in September 2020, declared the husband and his company, owners of the same land and ordered the FG to facilitate their perfection of title documents of the land, The Trumpet gathered.
She noted that in breach of the rule of law, the Federal Government has refused to abide by the judgment of the Lagos State High Court and the two earlier judgments of the Federal High Court and has now brought a criminal charge for the 3rd time on the same land before the Federal High Court.
She said: “In further breach of the rights of my husband without serving him any notice of the new criminal charge, policemen from the SFU under the instruction of the complainant, NDIC, stormed my husband’s office on March 8, 2022, forcefully took him away, detained him in their cell and forcibly brought him to court on March 9, 2022, under a warrant of arrest that stated that he didn’t come to court on November 26, 2021, when the court didn’t even sit.
Read Also: New electoral law: Matters arising
“On that March 9, 2022, when he was brought to court, the court also did not sit but the police refused to let my husband go and are still detaining him in their cell. It is really surprising what an ordinary Nigerian citizen is going through for owning a land that agents of the Federal Government are interested in.”
Warning that the FG would be held to account if anything happened to her husband, Mrs Ukpakpa said; “My husband has serious health issues and despite our appeals to the Police to release him, since no court order was issued for his detention, they have continued to detain him.
It is clear that the FG has no regards for the court, so we are warning that those illegally detaining him on the order from ‘above’, will be held liable if anything happens to him.”
