Judgment
OBANDE FESTUS OGBUINYA, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment) : This appeal probes into the correctness of the decision of the High Court of Lagos, Lagos Division (hereinafter addressed as “the lower Court”), coram judice: O.A. Adefope-Okojie, J. (now JCA), in Suit No. M/239/2006, delivered on 20th November, 2006. Before the lower Court, the appellants and the respondent were the defendants/respondents and applicant respectively. The facts of the case, which transformed into the appeal, are amenable to brevity and simplicity.
The respondent was a driver of a commercial toyota bus with registration number XF 163 EKY. On 10th March, 2006, the respondent was fixing his tyre at a vulcaniser’s workshop in front of the premises of the first appellant. In the course of that, the armed security outfit of the first respondent (campus marshalls), led by the second respondent, came and arrested him. The allegation against him was that his bus was one of the vehicles used by the students for their protest action against the first appellant on 9th March, 2006.
The armed marshalls beat, tortured, chained, handcuffed and detained the respondent. They forced him, at gun point, to admit, in writing, that he worked on 9th March, 2006 and a written apology for that. They paraded him, like a common criminal, through the highway. They took him to the P.P.L. Police Station where the police officers ordered them to release him but they refused. They seized and detained the respondent’s commercial toyota bus which caused untold hardships on him and members of his family. They continued to detain the toyota bus despite repeated demands for its release.
Sequel to these, the respondent beseeched the lower Court, via an application filed on 31st May, 2006, under the fundamental right procedure, and tabled against the appellants the following reliefs: a.
A DECLARATION that the arrest, detention, torture, inhuman treatment of the Applicant by the Lagos State University marshals, a Security Department of LAGOS STATE UNIVERSITY OJO, in 10/03/2006 is unlawful, illegal and unconstitutional as same violate the Applicant’s Fundamental Right to personal liberty, human dignity as guaranteed by Sections 34 and 35 of the Constitution of the FEDERAL REPUBLIC OF NIGERIA 1999 and the AFRICAN CHARTER ON HUMAN AND PEOPLES (RATIFICATION AND ENFORCEMENT) ACT 1990.
