Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, on Monday, ordered the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu and the Nigeria Police Force, to release a Facebook user, Mbarak Bala, who has been in detention for 11 months for allegedly publishing a blasphemous post about Islam.
Justice Ekwo declared that the arrest and detention of the Applicant by the IGP and the NPF, in an unknown detention centre since February 28, because he expressed his opinion about religion on Facebook, constituted an infraction of his rights to personal liberty, fair hearing, freedom of thought, freedom of expression and freedom of movement.
Bala was arrested in Kaduna State on February 28, 2020, over a petition that was lodged against him by some Kano-based persons who alleged that he “insulted the Prophet of Islam Mohammed (PBUH)”.
He was subsequently detained at Gbabasawa Police Station in Kaduna State, on the instruction of the Kano State Police Command.
Following his continued detention, Bala, through his lawyers, approached the high court to enforce his fundamental rights.
Aside from the IGP and the NPF, the Applicant equally joined the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, as Respondents in the suit.
Justice Ekwo held that action of the respondents, “in denying the Applicant access to his lawyers, constitutes a gross infringement of the Applicant’s right to legal representation of his choice under section 34 and 35(2) of the 1999 Constitution”.
Consequently, the court issued an order directing the Respondents to release the Applicant from detention to his lawyers on bail forthwith.
It equally awarded the sum of N250, 000 to the Applicant as general/exemplary damages, against the 1st and 2nd Respondents, for the infraction of the fundamental rights of the Applicant.
However, the court struck out the name of the AGF, Malami, from the suit on the premise that no cause of action was established against him.
Justice Ekwo stressed that the IGP and NPF failed to controvert any of the depositions in the affidavit evidence the Applicant filed before the court.
It held that since the IGP and the NPF failed to enter an appearance in the case, even though they were duly served with all the relevant processes and hearing notices, averments in the Applicant’s affidavit, were deemed admitted and legally reliable.
Justice Ekwo further emphasised that as the time the suit was filed before the court, whereabouts of the Applicant, though within the knowledge of the IGP and NPF, remanded unknown to counsel to the Applicant.
One of the lawyers that represented the Applicant, Ibrahim Buba, had informed the court that after Bala was arrested, his team, wrote a letter to the IGP, to notify him that the life of their client was in danger.
He said the legal team, therefore, pleaded that he should be transferred to Abuja for trial.
The lawyer told the court that when he visited the Kano State Police headquarters on May 4, 2020, he confirmed through communications with the Commissioner of Police in Kano State that the Applicant was in his custody and was being interrogated.
Buba said he was thereafter made to wait for three hours after which he was asked to come back the following day.
According to him, upon his arrival at the CP’s office the next day, he was referred to the Officer in Charge, Criminal Investigation, and Intelligence Bureau, O/C CIIB.
The O/C CIIB was said to have declined any information about the whereabouts of the Applicant, claiming he was still undergoing interrogation outside Kano.
The lawyer further told the court that his interactions with other police officers at the Kano Command and the Force headquarters revealed that the Applicant was moved to Abuja.
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