Oduasanyin Seeks Redress, Drags Nigeria Police, Others To Court To Enforce Fundamental Rights

Oduasanyin Seeks Redress, Drags Nigeria Police, Others To Court To Enforce Fundamental Rights

 OLORUNDARE ENIMOLA, Lagos 

Following an alleged illegal arrest and detention of Chief Taofeek Oduasanyin and Chief Apewo Oduasanyin on July 31 to August 6, by Officers of the Nigeria Police attached to the Eleweran Police Command in Abeokuta, Ogun State, the brothers has filled a suit at the Ogun State High Court in Ota for the enforcement of their fundamental rights.

The suit filled by Barrister Taiwo Ogunleyeon behalf of the Oduasanyins is asking the Court to declare that the arrest and detention of the brothers within those days by Officers of the Nigeria Police is  unlawful, unconstitutional, oppressive and a violation of their rights, guaranteed in the Nigeria constitution as amended

Adding that the continuous threat of arrest, detention and intimidation of the brothers and members of their family by Officers of the Nigeria Police Force is illegal, unlawful and unconstitutional, while stressing that the prevention of the family from going in and out of their bonafide landed properties at itusi family land, Ilogbo Baba Ode in Ado-Odo Ota Local Government Area of Ogun State is illegal, unconstitutional and ultra vires of the powers of the Police.

The suit is also asking the Court to restrain the Police from interfering in land dispute, especially one on which there is a valid court judgment, retraining the Police with their Agents or Servants from further using coercive force of the Nigerian Police to harass, arrest, detain, threaten or intimidate the Oduasanyin's or members of their family on account of the full exercise of their bonafide ownership and possessory rights on their landed properties as judicially confirmed by the courts.

The sum of Fifty million Naira (50,000,000) was also requested to be paid separately as compensation to each of; Chief Taofeek Oduasanyin, Chief Apewo Oduasanyin and Mr. Bankole Michael and Mr. Andrew Sunday for the violation of their rights as guaranteed under the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, while the sums of two million (2,000,000) and One million, six hundred Naira carted away during the arrest of the Oduasanyin brothers should be returned to them by the Police.

It will be recalled on July 21, 2021, Chief Taofeek Odunsayin, the Head of the Itu­si Baba Ode Royal family in an exclusive interview with DAILY INDEPENDENT, said, he wrote a petition to Kayode Egbetokun, the then newly appointed Acting Inspector General of Police (IGP) on the lingering mayhems unleashed by land grabbers who turned his community into a bat­tlefield of a sort, lamenting that he had earlier written over 33 petitions, Save Our Souls (SOS) letters, appeals, pleas, and entreaties to several security outfits.

He stated he has written to succeeding Inspector Generals of Po­lice, Attorneys-General of Ogun State, Speakers of the House of Representa­tives, Speakers of Ogun State House of Assembly, Commissioners of Police in Ogun State, Heads of the General Inves­tigation Department, Area 10, Garki, Abuja; the Directors of Public Prose­cution (DPPs), Ogun State, Executive Governors of the state on the horrors inflicted by land-grabbers on residents of the community without any respite.

Chief Odunsayin said, “All the pe­titions we wrote are centred on a par­ticular notorious land-grabber who is known to the government, security of­ficials, judges and agencies of the state that could bring him to order, but they choose to collude with him to ravage poor farmers, tenants, land-owners, property developers and land specula­tors from living in peace and bringing development to our community and the State in general.”

He asked, “Why have the land grab­bers not been brought to book despite the several petitions I have written against them since 2019, flagrantly re­fusing to appear before any of them, even when he is invited and nothing is done to him or his group members?”