Nigeria Content Online

The Federal High
Court sitting in Benin City, Edo State, has reserved November 3 for
ruling on whether to send the Inspector General of Police, the chairman
of the Police Service Commission, the Delta State commissioner of
police and two others to jail for contempt, for failing to appear in
court, as well as failing to carry out an earlier court order.

The ruling is over
hearing in the case of one Kayode Martins, who was dismissed by the
police force in 2000 but was reinstated by the court after a lengthy
court battle. But the police is yet to pay him a kobo or integrate him
into the force.

Mr Martins said his
ordeal started on December 6, 2000, when he was arrested and
subsequently dismissed on March 16, 2001, on charges which the court
later described as unlawful, irregular and wrongful, contrary to
natural justice, unconstitutional, null and void and of no effect
whatsoever.

This judgment was
upon a suit filed on the June 19, 2003 by S.O Orugbon on behalf of the
plaintiff. Judgment was subsequently given on the April 12, 2005 after
the defendants, which include the Inspector General of Police, the
Police Service Commission, the Commissioner of Police, the Provost
Marshall and the Attorney General of the Federation all failed to
attend the court proceeding.

The court also
ordered that the arrest, detention and subsequent dismissal by the
police force of the father of 11 children, for what they called the
heinous crime of conspiracy and economy sabotage, was unconstitutional
and of no effect.

Still an officer

The judgement also
stated that “the plaintiff is still a police officer in the Nigeria
Police Force till date, meaning that his services are unbroken and
continuous until the year 2014 when he is due to retire normally from
the force, all things being equal.

“That the plaintiff
is hereby reinstated into the Nigeria Police Force and should be
promptly accorded all the rights, privileges, salaries, wages,
emolument, promotions and all other entitlements and prerequisites of
office, with effect from the 4th of April 2001 till date”.

When the management
of the force refused to act on the judgment, Mr Martins sought another
court order at the Federal High Court in Benin City, presided over by
C.V.U Nwokorie, who authorized the issuance of a hearing notice of
consequence of disobedience to court order (form 48 and 49) to the IGP,
AGF, the chairman of the Police Service Commissions and two others.

Mr Martins, a sergeant before he was dismissed, said his life in the
past 10 years has lost meaning, as he has been made to feed his family
through goodwill from friends and the merger savings from his wife’s
make-shift shop at the Ekpan, a suburb of Warri, Delta State.