Court strikes out Emefiele brothers’ suits against AGF, DSS

A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory FCT on Wednesday struck out two separate fundamental rights enforcement suits instituted against the Attorney General of the Federation, AGF, and the Department of State Services, DSS, by two siblings of the suspended Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Godwin Emefiele.

The two brothers, George Emefiele and Okanta Emefiele, had sued the two respondents seeking for order of the Court to enforce their fundamental rights to freedom of movement among others.

They had separately approached the court, seeking, among other reliefs, its order of perpetual injunction restraining the secret police from inviting, intimidating, harassing, and arresting or detaining them in relation “to matters or body of matters which relates to the ongoing investigation of Mr. Godwin Emefiele and/or matters outside the constitutional and statutory mandate of the 1st respondent (DSS)”;

The applicants, in the two separate matters, had joined the DSS and AGF as respondents.

At the resumed hearing of the cases on Wednesday, counsel for the applicants, Grace Ehusani, informed the court that the applicants separately filed notice of discontinuance of the case, though she did not give any reasons for the application.

While not apposing the application, counsel for the DSS, Ibrahim Awo, urged the court to dismiss the case, instead of striking it out as requested by the applicants’ counsel.

He then asked for a substantial cost of N2 million against the applicants in favour of the respondents.

Counsel for the AGF, Maimuma Lami-Sheru aligned herself with the submission of the DSS counsel and asked for a N2 million cost.

In his bench ruling, Justice Emmanuel Okpe, a vacation judge, struck out the cases and ordered that no cost should be paid by the applicants.