A Lagos-based lawyer, Mr Olukoya Ogungbeje, has accused the Central Bank of Nigeria of frustrating the execution of the N200m judgment, which his client, Ibrahim Kabiru, secured against the Nigeria Police Force.
Kabiru had sued the police for the “gruesome extrajudicial” killing of his next-of-kin, Waheed Kabiru, by the police in 2015.
According to the deceased’s family, his corpse “is still lying unburied at the morgue of the General Hospital awaiting a decent burial.”
Following a fundamental rights enforcement filed by the deceased’s family against the police, the Federal High Court in Lagos, on November 1, 2016, entered judgment in their favour and ordered the police to pay them N200m as damages for the extrajudicial killing of Waheed.
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To get the money, the family initiated a garnishee proceeding at the end of which Justice C.J. Aneke, on April 9, 2019, gave them the go-ahead to take the money from the account of the Nigeria Police Force with any bank.
The Central Bank of Nigeria was joined as a garnishee in the proceeding.
Justice Aneke made an order “attaching the sum of N200m, belonging to the Nigeria Police Force, under whose authority and behest the judgment debtor violated the rights of the judgment creditor, giving rise to this action, which sum is in the possession of the garnishees.”
The judge also ordered the CBN and seven commercial banks joined as garnishees to “file statements under oath showing the standing account of the Nigeria Police as at the date of service of the order nisi on the garnishees.”
Following the alleged refusal of the CBN to comply with the court order, the family’s lawyer, Ogungbeje, wrote to the CBN Governor, Mr Godwin Emefiele, threatening to sue for contempt if his client was not paid the N200m within 48 hours.
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“In accordance with the clear directives of the Federal High Court, Lagos, presided over by Justice C.J. Aneke, take notice that in the event of failure and or refusal to obey and comply strictly with the order absolute within 48 hours, we shall not fail to apply and move the court, who also sits as a vacation judge on Thursday, the 11th of July, 2019, for the hearing of our committal proceedings against your person, bank, officers and other contemnors on the face of the application sought to be committed to prison until you purge yourselves of contempt of court,” the letter read partly.
Also, the family of the deceased, in a July 30, 2019 “protest letter” to the Director of Legal Services at the CBN, accused the CBN of failing to live to expectation as a corporate institution created by law and “constituting itself into a lawless organisation, fighting tooth and nail and conniving with the police to deny our family justice and foist injustice on us, despite the dismissal of the application of your bank for stay of execution of the order absolute.”
The family, which described Waheed’s killing by the police as painful, while nothing that his remains had yet to be buried since 2015, threatened to “lead a massive protest to the entrance of the headquarters and Lagos branch of the CBN, to shut down its operations, until the order of court absolute granted on the 9th of April, 2019 by the Federal High Court in Lagos is obeyed.”
