For allegedly being assaulted and humiliated in public by some armed officers of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps, an Osogbo based lawyer, Tunde Babasola, has demanded N10 million as damages from the Osun State Command of the corps.
The lawyer, in a letter addressed to the commandant of the NSCDC in the state through a law firm in Osogbo, Oye Adediran & Co, entitled, “Demand for N10million damages and unreserved apology,” claimed that he was assaulted and detained for six hours for no just reason.
The letter, signed by Oye Adediran and made available to our correspondent in Osogbo on Tuesday, revealed how the NSCDC officers allegedly arrested and humiliated Babasola before they handed him over to the police on the instructions of the State Commandant of the corps, Ayodele Philips.
Reacting, the NSCDC officials claimed that the lawyer was arrested and detained because he did not pull over his car when their vehicle was coming behind him.
To this end, the civil defence operatives were said to have seized the lawyer’s phone from him and driven him from their office at Oke-Ayepe to the Police Headquarters, Ring Road, in a very dehumanizing manner with intent to embarrass and subject him to ridicule.
It was gathered that the wife of the lawyer, Mrs. Florence Babasola, a journalist, was at the police headquarters to cover a press conference before she sighted her husband being humiliated by the NSCDC men.
It was further learnt that the journalist who attempted to approach her husband was prevented and chased away in an embarrassing manner by the Civil Defence operatives.
Other journalists who were at the police headquarters for the press conference quickly alerted the commissioner of Police, Mr. Femi Oyeleye about the overzealousness of the NSCDC men over the matter.
Oyeleye instantly assigned the Police SIB to investigate the matter and report back to him.
He later released the lawyer to the journalists.
Meanwhile, the lawyer has demanded for N10 million damages and an unreserved apology from the Osun State Command of the NSCDC for the assault and degrading treatment meted to him.
Babasola threatened that legal action would be instituted against NSCDC if the command failed to pay the damages within seven days.
The letter reads in part, “Our instruction is to demand from your command within 7 days as from today (Wednesday) to pay N10million damages and within the same period, tender unreserved apologies through this office to our client, failing which the litigation fireworks are already in place to institute legal action against your command at the appropriate Court of law.
“On that day at 2.00 P.M, our client was driving through Station Road and passing through the front of Ataoja Palace, Osogbo, when he met a very big crowd of people on the road celebrating Osun Osogbo
festival.
“Our client stopped on the road and looking back through the mirror, he saw your civil defence van with ‘Civil Defence’ Conspicuously inscribed on it and our client was gesticulating with his hand to the driver of your Civil Defence van to exercise patience because of the crowd on the way. That was the offence committed by our client.
“The officers took our client to their office at Ayepe area, Osogbo by force and meted brutish assault on our client by thorough striking like a criminal. They snatched our client’s two phones to wit: Camon C8 and Gionee L900. The two handsets were damaged before returning same to our client.”
Meanwhile, the development has attracted the attention of human right groups in the state, including the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights and the Committee of the Democracy and Rights of the People.
Also, the Osun State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists and the Nigerian Bar Association in Osogbo frowned on the overzealousness of the NSCDC men in the state.
The NUJ, in a statement signed by its Secretary, Mr. Bamigbola Boladale called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the Minister of Interior, AbdulRahman Dambazau, to investigate the matter and bring the NSCDC men to book before other hapless citizens would be subjected to unwarranted assault.
