A group of legal practitioners, under the aegis of Lawyers of Conscience, on Wednesday, threatened to sue the Inspector-General (IG) of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, over alleged incessant harassment of their colleague, Mr. Victor Giwa.
The lawyers, who called on the IG to call his men to order, also urged the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to wade into the matter by calling Mr. Egbetokun to refrain from such act.
Mr. Maxwell Opara, while speaking to newsmen on behalf of the group, threatened to sue the IG “in his personal capacity as Kayode Egbetokun, if he fails to act accordingly.”
Narrating how the issue started, Opara said a staff of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mrs. Asabe Waziri, who bought a multi-million naira property in the Maitama District of Abuja, led to series of litigations.
According to the lawyer, Waziri was alleged to be instigating the police to carry out unlawful acts in respect of cases pending before courts of competent jurisdictions.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the purchase of the multi-million naira property by Waziri was said to have attracted several court cases before the FCT High Court.
The court had ordered her eviction from the property due to her alleged faceoff with other property owners in the apartment as well as financial dispute in the purchase of the assets.
Related Articles
Upon the order of the court, Waziri was evicted from the property by bailiffs of the Abuja High Court.
Dissatisfied with the order, she challenged her eviction in court, and the suit is still pending.
Meanwhile, Opara accused Mrs. Waziri of resorting to self help with the alleged unlawful use of police to achieve what she could not achieve in the open court.
The lawyer said that the police had no business dabbling into a pure civil transaction of property purchase.
He added that the police, as a law abiding institution, should allow the matter to be fully determined by the court instead of acting as a court of its own.
Opara insisted it was wrong of Mrs. Waziri to use the police to harass Victor Giwa, who was counsel to the property developer, Abbey Signatures Ltd.
The lawyer warned the IG and his officers to desist from taking laws into their hands.
