Businesswoman accuses police of ‘unlawful’ detention of husband over civil dispute

A businesswoman, Mrs. Uche Ukpaka, has accused the Federal Government (FG) of using the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) of the Nigeria Police to unlawfully detain her husband, Mr. Ignatus Ukpaka, over a civil dispute pertaining to land in Banana Island.

Addressing journalists in Lagos last week, Mrs. Ukpaka said her husband, whom a Lagos State High Court has declared owner of the land, was arrested by police on March 8, 2022, in Lagos under the guise of executing a warrant of arrest for a criminal charge over the ownership of that same land.

She said that was the third time the FG is bringing the charge before the Federal High Court, Lagos, adding that her husband is suffering an underlying ailment.

She stated that the government had brought a criminal charge over the land against her husband before the Federal High Court in 2014 and that the court declared the charge illegal, unconstitutional and discharged him.

To her surprise, she added, the FG in 2018 brought another criminal charge over the same land against her husband and the court in 2019 dismissed the charge, declaring it unconstitutional and unlawful.

To address the issue of the ownership of the land, she said her husband sued the FG and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation (NDIC) at the Lagos High Court.

According to her, after five years of litigation between the parties, Justice Oyekan-Abdulla of the Lagos High Court, in a judgment delivered in September 2020 declared her husband and his company, owners of the land and ordered the FG to facilitate the perfection of title documents of the land.

Violating rule of law, she said the FG has refused to abide by the judgment of the Lagos State High Court and the two earlier judgments of the Federal High Court and has now brought a criminal charge for the third time on the same land before the Federal High Court.

“In a further breach of the rights of my husband without serving him any notice of the new criminal charge, policemen from the SFU, under the instruction of the complainant, NDIC, stormed my husband’s office on March 8, 2022, forcefully took him away, detained him in their cell and forcibly brought him to court on March 9, 2022, under a warrant of arrest that stated that he didn’t come to court on November 26, 2021, when the court didn’t even sit.

‘The court did not sit on March 9, 2022, when he was brought to court but the police refused to let my husband go and still detained him. It is really surprising what an ordinary Nigeria citizen is going through for owning land, which agents of the FG are interested in,” she lamented.

She said the FG would be held responsible if anything happens to her husband.

“My husband has serious health issues and despite our appeals to the Police released him since no court order was issued for his detention, they have continued to detain him.

“It is clear that the FG has no regard for the court, so we are warning that those illegally detaining him on the order of people from ‘above’ will be held liable if anything happens to him,” she warned.