A consortium of legal practitioners under the aegis of Lawyers of Conscience has urged the Inspector General of Police, IGP, Mr Kayode Egbetokun, to call his men to order over the alleged harassment of an Abuja-based human rights activist, Mr Victor Giwa.
The group equally implored the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to wade into the matter by calling on the police to refrain from further threatening to arrest the lawyer.
Addressed the media on Wednesday, the group, through its spokesperson, Mr Maxwell Opara, said it would not hesitate to initiate legal action against the IGP in his capacity, should he fail to handle the situation accordingly.
Narrating how the issue started, Opara said a staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mrs Asabe Waziri, who bought a multi-million naira property in the Maitama district of Abuja, led to a series of litigations.
According to the lawyer, Waziri was alleged to be instigating the police to carry out unlawful acts in respect of cases pending before courts of competent jurisdictions.
The purchase of the multi million naira property by Waziri was said to have attracted several court cases before the FCT High Court, during which an order was issued for her eviction due to her alleged faceoff with other property owners in the apartment as well as financial infraction in the purchase transaction.
Upon the order of the court, Waziri was evicted from the property, but was however, said to be bitter with the eviction carried out by bailiffs of the Abuja High Court.
Although, she was said to have challenged her eviction in court, Opara accused Mrs Waziri of resorting to self help “with the unlawful use of police to achieve what she could not achieve in the open court.”
He maintained that the police had no business dabbling into a pure civil transaction of property purchase.
The lawyer insisted that the police, being a law abiding institution, ought to have allowed the court to settle the issues in dispute.
Opara warned that the group would activate the full weight of the law, should police continue to harrass their member, Giwa, for merely representing one of the parties in the case.
Source: The Vanguard
