Rights abuse: Court orders FG pay Chedi, Rabo N1m
From KABIRU YUSUF, Abuja

PASSING his judgement against the case filed by the Kano state government over the arrest of the Commander-General of Hisbah Guard, Malam Yahya Faruk Chedi and his deputy, Abubakar Rabo the presiding judge of Abuja Court of Appeal, Justice Babs Kuewumi declared the detention of the duo as unlawful and ordered that federal government pays each one of them the sum of N500,000 for this illegal detention.
Reading his judgment, Justice Kuewumi who said that the arrest of the two plaintiffs was legal as the law of the land provides that police has the constitutional duty to arrest anybody suspected for one reason or the other, explained that law does not however, give police such period of detention without taking the suspect to the court of law.
He further said that following the infringement of their fundamental human rights, the federal government should pay each one of the plaintiffs the sum of N500,000 as specific and general damage.
It could be recalled that following the arrest of the Commander-General of Hisbah, Mallam Yahya Chedi and his deputy, Abubakar Rabo Kano, state had government dragged the federal government to the Federal High Court Abuja, asking her to declare their arrest of February 8th, 2006 and their subsequent detention as unlawful.
The plaintiffs were arrested in Kano on February 8th and brought to Abuja at midnight and detained for alleged running and managing an unlawful called the Hisbah established by the Kano state government.
In his submission on January 16 this year before Justice Babs Kuewumi, the counsel of the applicants, Malam Yusuf Ali (SAN) prayed the court to award N50m damage to each of the plaintiffs against the federal government who ordered their arrest and detention.
Similarly, Yusuf Ali, prayed the court to order the federal government render public apology to the plaintiffs for the unlawful arrest which he said contradicted the provision of the constitution.
He said that since March 2nd, 2006 when the fundamental human rights case was filled asking for relief, the respondents had not done much in response to the suit except their four paragraphs’ counter affidavit which he said supported the plaintiffs case.
He said that where a citizen approaches the court that he was unlawfully detained by the authorities, the onus lies with the arresting authorities to show that there were reasonable grounds for the arrest and detention.
Barrister Ali also said that it was not enough for the respondents to state that the presence of the plaintiffs in Kano was generating problems, adding that no mayhem was reported over the activities of Hisbah from any part of the state and nobody reported any wrong doing from Hisbah members.
He submitted that based on the Hisbah law which established the organization, the plaintiffs works have not been found by any court to contradict existing laws and the applicants were operating under the law set up by a state assembly which was assented to by the state governor.
According to him, the respondents’ averment that they are still investigating, was not tenable because the law did not permit their arrest before investigation pointing out that their arrest and detention contradicted the law of the land which requires the law enforcement agents to finish their investigations before arresting the accused persons.
The counsel further said the respondents had failed woefully to justify the infringements which he said violate Section 36 Sub-sections 4,5,6 of the 1999 Constitution.