Ololade Adeyanju/
Olukoya Ogungbeje, the lawyer defending Evans the suspected billionaire kidnapper, has suffered yet another defeat in his career.
This time, Ogungbeje has lost a N5 billion fundamental human rights case instituted against the police on behalf of retirees of the Federal Airports Authority of Nigeria (FAAN).
NewsmakersNG learnt that Ogungbeje was standing for some retirees of FAAN in the N5 billion fundamental rights suit against the agency over alleged illegal and forceful eviction from their quarters.
The respondents in the suit marked FHC/L/CS/1135/16, were the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Ibrahim Idris, the Lagos State Police Command and a Commissioner of Police (CP) Busari Hakeem Aramide.
Ogungbeje was floored by police lawyer, DCP Friday Toyin Ibadin last Tuesday, when the case continued before Justice AbdulAziz Anka at a Federal High Court in Ikoyi, Lagos.
After much argument, both written and oral submissions, Ogungbeje lost. The suit was struck out in favor of the police.
In what appears as a recurring decimal, Ogungbeje has been losing fundamental human rights cases among others this year, including that of Chukwudumeme George Onwuamadike, aka Evans.
Ogungbeje recently filed a fundamental rights suit against the police over the detention of Evans. He lost, and he was fined N500, 000 at a Federal High Court in Lagos for professional misconduct.
The Judge also awarded a cost in the sum of N20, 000, against Ogungbeje.
Ogungbeje had filed the suit against the Inspector-General of Police demanding N300 million, for what he termed as Evans’ ‘Illegal and unlawful detention’.
Justice Ibrahim Buba at a Federal High Court, in Lagos, recently dismissed two fundamental rights applications filed by him.
He had filed the case on behalf of his clients, Messrs Chief Kenneth Chukwuemeka Ajoku and Chidinma Ozurumba, against the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), but it was dismissed for lack of merit and for being frivolous.
The judge awarded a total cost of N500, 000 against the two petitioners.
Last April, Ogungbeje filed a suit asking the Federal High Court to stay proceedings on the forfeiture of $43,449,947 (about N15billion), N23, 218, 000 and £27,800 (about N10.6 million) found in a flat in Ikoyi, Lagos.
He also sought an order directing the EFCC to furnish the court with a report of its preliminary or final investigation on the source of the money, its owner, and how the currencies got into the building.
Ogungbeje, in a motion on notice asked the court not to order a permanent forfeiture of the money since there are claims and counter claims regarding its ownership by the Rivers State government and the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) and since the Federal Government had set up the Osinbajo panel to find the truth about the ownership of the money.
The case did not get anywhere as the money was later permanently forfeited to the Federal Government.
A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja also declined an application filed by Ogungbeje, seeking an order to stop the arrest or any ‘untoward action’ against eight judges whose houses were raided by operatives of the Department of State Services (DSS).
Those he wanted to restrain by the order included President Muhammadu Buhari, the DSS, the Attorney-General of the Federation and the Police.
He had on October 14, 2016 filed the substantive suit seeking 10 prayers, among which is an order awarding N50 billion against the defendants as “general and exemplary damages”.
He argued that the arrest of the judges without recourse to the NJC was unlawful and amounted to humiliating them.
Justice Gabriel Kolawole in a bench ruling delivered after Ogungbeje’s counsel, Ayo Ogundele, moved the ex parte application, held that he needed to resolve a number of issues including the locus standi of the plaintiff in an inter-party hearing before he could make a pronouncement on the prayer.
Ogungbeje also filed a suit in Lagos in 2014 asking for the reinstatement of Murtala Nyako as governor of Adamawa State. This was after Nyako was impeached by the state assembly in July of the same year and the speaker of the state assembly had taken over.
Again, the case hit the rocks.
Ogungbeje claimed the Assembly’s alleged failure to serve Nyako personally with the impeachment notice violated his fundamental right to fair hearing as enshrined under Section 36 of the 1999 Constitution.
Newsmakersng learnt that he sued the Lagos State Government on behalf of Prophet T.B. Joshua over the collapse of the Synagogue church building without the knowledge of the clergy man, who had to settle with him to withdraw the case.
For Ibadin, the latest victory has notched up his accomplishments as a police lawyer, which included a recent victory against the Nigeria Security and Civil Defense Corps (NSCDC), at the Court of Appeal in Abuja that upturned a High Court judgement asking the police to hand arrested pipeline vandals over to NSCDC for prosecution.
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