May 04, (THEWILL) – Justice Iniekinimi Abraham Uzaka of the Bayelsa State High Court, sitting in Yenagoa, on Thursday, has adjourned to June 14, 2023, the suit filed by an Ijaw Rights Activist, Comrade Collins Opumie, over his alleged two years illegal detention in the secret detention centre of the operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS).
According to Justice Uzaka, the Counsel to the plaintiff, Ebipreye Sese Esq, said, “He should put his house in order”, by ensuring the error in the address of service to the first sets of defendants were corrected under the rule of the court.
Justice Uzaka, at the resumed sitting of the court, with the Counsel to the Nigeria Agip Oil Company (NAOC), Barr. S.M. Tsado, advised the plaintiff that despite the single address involved, the address to be used should be uniformed.
Also addressed in court was the issue of seeking the leave of the court before service, which the plaintiff’s counsel explained that the current Bayelsa State High Court rules 2010 has done away with the provision for seeking leave to issue and serve a writ of summons outside jurisdiction.
Speaking with newsmen after the court sitting, Barr. Ebipreye Sese Esq, assured that though the unlawful arrest and detention suit filed against the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC), the Department of State Security (DSS) and the Nigerian Police, was at the preliminary stage, he said, “At the next hearing, we will file a request for accelerated hearing.”
The Counsel, Barr. Ebipreye Sese Esq, further stated that the suit, filed by Comrade collins Opumie, against his illegal arrest and detention by the operatives of the DSS on the alleged prompting of the Security department of the NOAC, who falsely accused him of being a threat to the company, was right and just, “he has the right to seek redress.”
Comrade Opumie, in the suit numbered YC/324/2022, is demanding for the sum of N9 billion damages and praying the court to declare that his arrest, torture and subsequent detention without proper food and medical attention and access to family members for two years, was amounting to unlawful imprisonment.
