JUST IN: Police to pay N50m, apologise to IPOB activist Ngozi Umeadi

A Federal Capital Territory High Court, Gudu, Abuja, Thursday awarded N50 million damages against the police for arresting and detaining an activist of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Mrs. Ngozi Umeadi.

In addition to the monetary award, the court ordered for her “immediate and unconditional release from custody”, directing the police to “tender an unreserved apology to Mrs Ngozi Umeadi, which apology will be published in two national dailies”.

IPOB and Nnamdi Kanu’s lawyer, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, who hailed the judgment said the order was delivered by Justice Modupe Osho-Adebiyi of Court No. 28, Gudu Judicial Division, Abuja.

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The lawyer had filed a fundamental right suit to challenge the illegal arrest, torture and continued detention of Mrs. Umeadi, since February 2021.

Osho-Adebiyi declared Ngozi Umeadi’s arrest and continued detention by the operatives of the Inspector General of Police Intelligence Response Unit, hitherto led by the suspended, Abba Kyari, as “illegal, and a gross violation of her fundamental Human Rights”.

Umeadi, a nursing mother, was said to have been arrested at a hospital in Onitsha in February 2021.

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