Court orders FG to pay 50m as damages to Sanusi

Suspended CBN Gov.  Mallam Lamido Sanusi

A Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered the Federal Government, the State Security Service and the police to immediately release the passport of   the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Mallam Lamido Sanusi.

The court, in a judgment it delivered on Thursday, also directed the respondents, including the police, to pay N50m to him as exemplary damages for unlawfully detaining him and seizing his passport.

Justice Ibrahim Buba delivered the judgment in the fundamental rights enforcement suit instituted by Sanusi following his arrest, detention, and seizure of his passport on February 20, 2014. The court dismissed the allegation of terrorism financing as the basis for arresting him and seizing his passport. It described the allegation as an afterthought.

He therefore ordered the respondents to “jointly and severally” pay N50m to Sanusi and issue a public apology to him for their actions. The judge, who granted eight out of the nine prayers of the applicant, only refrained from granting an order of perpetual injunction restraining the law enforcement agencies from arresting, harassing or intimidating him without recourse to the law.

He held that such order was not necessary as the applicant could always return to the court if any form of rights infringement arose in the future. 

Officers of the SSS had on February 20 arrested Sanusi and seized his passport at the Murtala Muhammed International Airport, Lagos after arriving in the country from the Niger Republic. His passport was seized shortly after he was suspended by President Goodluck Jonathan as CBN governor.

The APC added that the verdict should  also “serve  as a lesson to our law enforcement officers to  know that, the fact that one has fallen out of favour, is not an excuse for them to abuse people’s rights with impunity.”

Source: Punch