The Court of Appeal, Lagos has reserved judgment in
the appeal filed by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) against the
judgment awarding N25 million as compensation in favour of Yoruba actor,
Babatunde Omidina, popularly called Baba Suwe, for his wrongful detention by
the agency in 2011.
The Justice Chima Nweze-led appeal reserved the case for judgment after
parties adopted their briefs of argument on Thursday.
The panel is to communicate the date for judgment to the lawyers
representing the two parties when it is ready.
Mr Omidina’s counsel, Bamidele Aturu, at the hearing of the case said
the entire appeal by NDLEA urged the appellate court to uphold the judgment of
the lower court.
But counsel for the NDLEA, Femi Oloruntoba, in adopting the agency’s
five ground-appeal, asked the appeal panel, to set aside the lower court’s
judgment for being arbitrary.
Mr Oloruntoba said, “The judgment of the lower court was not a product
of the evidence both parties filed before the court.
“Also the award of N25 million against the appellant did not follow the
proper principle of award of damages.
“The entire judgment is not supported by law. We urge your Lordships to
set aside the whole judgment”.
Mr Aturu faulted all the grounds of the anti-narcotic agency’s appeal,
insisting that all the exhibits they relied on at the lower court were “legally
worthless”.
He urged the appeal panel to disregard the exhibits, saying they were
public documents which ought to be certified but were not.
“We have canvassed at the lower court that the documents were not
certified. The argument of the appellant’s counsel that the public documents do
not require certification is not the position of the law. We refer your
Lordships to Section 102 (a) of the Evidence Act 2011,” he said.
He also accused the NDLEA of being confused over the interpretation of
Section 35 (1) (c) of the constitution.
“The appellant seems to be confused over section 35(1)(c) of the
Constitution. They (NDLEA) think based on mere reasonable suspicion you can
hold somebody indefinitely without charging the person to court,” Mr Aturu
said.
Also among other NDLEA’s grounds of appeal was that the trial court
wrongly assumed jurisdiction to entertain the suit.
The trial judge, Justice Yetunde Idowu, had in a judgment delivered on
November 24, 2011, ordered the agency to pay N25 million to the respondent, for
keeping him in custody beyond the legal time limit on a suspicion of drug
ingestion.
The court had also ordered the agency to apologise to the actor
publicly in conspicuous pages of two national dailies.
Mr Omidina was arrested by operatives of the NDLEA at the Murtala
Muhammed International Airport on October 12, 2011 on allegations of ingestion
of narcotics.
Justice Idowu had ordered the release of the suspect when there was no
evidence that he ingested any narcotic substance, after spending 24 days in
detention.
The judge, in her judgment, held that the detention of the actor and
the ill-treatment meted to him while in custody violated his
constitutionally-guaranteed rights.
Mr Oloruntoba had insisted in the appeal that keeping the respondent in
custody between October 12 and 21, 2011, on the suspicion of drug ingestion
before obtaining an order of the Federal High Court, Lagos to further keep him
(Omidina) for additional 15 days did not violate his rights.
He said that the detention of the applicant for the first nine days was
legitimised by the court order obtained on October 21, 2011.
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