Court delivers judgement in Baba Suwe's N100m suit

A Lagos High Court in Ikeja will on Thursday (today), deliver judgement in the N100m suit filed by popular actor, Mr. Babatunde Omidina, also known as Baba Suwe, against the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency.In the suit, Baba Suwe is demanding N100m from the NDLEA as compensation for allegedly denying him of his rights to personal liberty through the unlawful detention.His lawyer, Mr. Bamidele Aturu, had argued during the hearing of the suit, that the NDLEA had abridged his clients rights by keeping the actor in its custody for more than the constitutionally-allowed 24 hours without charging him with any offence.He maintained that the agency failed to account for the nine days it detained Baba Suwe before it obtained an order of a Federal High Court, Lagos, to further detain the actor for additional 15 days.Baba Suwewas arrested on October 12 by the NDLEA operatives at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport on the suspicion that he had ingested substances likely to be hard drug.On October 21, nine days after Baba Suwe was arrested and had yet to excrete any narcotic substanceagainst the agencys expectationthe NDLEA went to the Federal High Court and obtained the order, allowing it to keep the actor for additional 15 days.The actor, arrested as he was about to board a Paris-bound Air France flight, was in the NDLEA custody for 24 days.He regained his freedom on the order given by Justice Yetunde Idowu, who on November 1 during the hearing of the suit, asked the NDLEA to release the actor on November 4, if no banned substance was found in his excreta until then.She had earlier, on October 26, ordered the NDLEA to produce Baba Suwe in court on November 1, following the concern raised by Aturu in an application seeking, at that time, his unconditional release.The NDLEA had maintained that it believed Baba Suwe was carrying large quantity of hard drugs, and that it was a matter of time for him to excrete them.On confirmation to the court by the NDLEA, represented by its Director of Prosecution and Legal Services, Mr. Femi Oloruntoba, that there was no hard drug found in the actors excreta throughout his stay in the agencys custody, the bail earlier granted the actor came to effect on November 4.Meanwhile, Aturu had in the suit sought through an application brought pursuant to Order IV Rules 3 and 4 of the Fundamental Human Rights Enforcement Procedure Rules 2009 for the unconditional release of the comedian from NDLEA custody, pending the hearing and determination of the substantive suit.He also sought the court to compel the NDLEA to publish its apology to his client in two national daily newspapers.
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