Court orders police to pay N100m compensation

A High Court sitting in Maiduguri, the Borno State capital, on Tuesday ordered the Police to pay N100 million as compensation to the family of the late Alhaji Baba Fugu Mohammed, for wrongful killing.
The ruling is coming nine months after the Boko Haram attacks on some states in the North, which led to several killings by both the Islamic militants and the security agents.

Similarly, the court also held that the police were guilty of extra-judicial murder and illegal killing of Alhaji Mohammed, even as it ordered that the corpse be exhumed from whereever it was and same be released to the family, for proper burial.

The late Mohammed was the father-in-law to the slain Boko Haram leader, late Mohammed Yusuf, who was allegedly killed by the police same way the father in-law was killed extra-judicially.
The family of the 70-year-old Mohammed had dragged the President, Federal Republic of Nigeria, the Attorney-General of the Federation, the IG of Police, Borno State Governor and his Attorney General/Commissioner for Justice before the court for the gruesome murder of their patriarch by the police shortly after he reported at the State Headquarters of the police in Maiduguri on July 31, 2009, which coincided with the fifth day of the fundamentalists’ insurgence in Borno State.

Head of the family and eldest son of the deceased, BabaKura Alhaji Fugu had approached the court to declare that “the detention and subsequent murder of Mohammed by the police for being father-in-law of the Boko Haram leader, Mohammed Yusuf was a violation of the deceased’s right to life and fair hearing as protected under sections 33 and 36 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”
He also maintained that the deceased’s constitutional rights as enshrined in sections 33 and 34 were violated by the respondents, by their actions.
Ruling on the matter, Justice Mohammed Mustapha of High Court 3, declared that “the extra-judicial murder of the applicant’s father by the respondents is illegal, unconstitutional and violation of his rights to life as enshrined in the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

In granting the second relief, the court equally held that the declaration of and subsequent execution of Alhaji Mohammed on July 31, 2009 was unconstitutional and a violation of his rights to fair hearing as provided for in the Constitution.
Justice Mustapha further averred that based on evidence brought before the court, late Fugu Mohammed was illegally killed by “members of the Nigeria Police Force,” following an invitation to the headquarters of the police in the state, by the police.

The court ordered that all the five respondents “jointly and severally” should pay the sum of N100 million as compensation to the applicant in addition to apologizing “jointly and severally” to the applicant for their “repressive and unconstitutional” acts.
The court also restrained the respondents from harassing or intimidating the late Mohammed’s eldest son or any of the family members in general.