Court orders police to pay woman N100m over death of husband in custody

Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday, ordered the Nigeria Police Force to pay a woman, Mrs. Mary Kajo, the sum of N100 million over the death of her husband in detention.

The judge, who gave the order while ruling on a suit filed by the woman, also ordered the police authorities to pay the sum of N500,000 as the cost of filing the suit.

Kajo had the suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/600/2023 and filed on May 2, 2023, said her husband, a plumber, was arrested, detained, and tortured by the police and eventually executed without trial.

She said the deceased was arrested by police officers near the Wurukum Market in Makurdi, Borno State, on January 1, 2018.

The NPF, the Inspector-General of Police, Benue State Commissioner of Police, and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) were listed as respondents in the suit.

In his ruling, Justice Ekwo directed a five percent post-judgment interest on the fine until the judgment debt is fully settled.

The judge, who observed that the police authorities did not challenge the case of the applicant, said: “The position of the law remains that affidavit evidence which is not challenged or controverted howsoever, is deemed admitted and can be relied upon by a court.”

He, therefore, declared that the killing of the victim in custody by agents of the police was wrongful, illegal and unconstitutional.

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He said the deceased had a fundamental right to life guaranteed and enforceable under the laws

Ekwo added: “I find that the applicant has established that the fundamental rights of her husband, Mr. Mark Kajo, have been breached by the inexplicable cold-blooded extra-judicial killing of the deceased in the custody of the 1st to 3rd respondents.

“Nothing can ever be more barbaric and nastier than this kind of death in the hands of law enforcement agents whose statutory and constitutional duty is to protect lives and property.

“By not filing any process in this case, I presume that the 1st— 3rd respondents are least perturbed about such loss of a citizen’s life in their custody and the outcome of this suit.

“Where it is established that the fundamental right of a citizen has been breached, the law is trite that damages in compensation, legally and naturally follow every act of violation of citizen’s fundamental right.”

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