Pay my N4m, brutalised lawyer tells police

A victim of police brutality, Adeyemi Abijo, has appealed to the police authorities to pay him the N4m
damages awarded to him by an Ikeja High Court. NaIJAaMEbO had on May 12 reported how Abijo, a Lagos-based lawyer, was beaten up by four policemen in front of the Ebute Meta Chief Magistrate’s Court, Lagos, on May 11. He had drawn the ire of the policemen after he appealed to them not to deflate the tyre of a vehicle which
broke down adjacent to the Railway Police Barracks. Abijo had in August 2011 dragged the Inspector General of Police, commissioners of police, Lagos and
Railway commands and one of the policemen, Ganiyu Abdulsalam, who he was able to identify to court. Abijo among others prayed the court to declare that the brutality meted out to him amounted to inhuman and
degrading treatment and sought damages of N500m. Delivering judgment last May, Justice C.A. Balogun, said the action of the policemen was a breach of Abijo’s
fundamental human rights as guaranteed by Section 34 of the 1999 Constitution and the African Charter on
Human and People’s Rights. “Abijo is hereby awarded the sum of N4m as damages jointly and severally on the Inspector General of Police,
commissioners of police Lagos and Railway commands and Abdulsalam,” Balogun ordered. But Abijo lamented that he had yet to be paid the damages and threatened to sue the police for the recovery
of the money. He said, “The court had held that I was subjected to torture and inhuman treatment in the hands of those
policemen. “I have waited for more than three and half months and the police authorities have neither appealed the
judgment nor paid me the N4m awarded by the court. “Court orders are not made for the fun of it and I’m disappointed that those who are made to enforce laws
would brazenly flout a court order.”