Lawyer Demands N10m Damage from NSCDC Osun Over Alleged Humiliation

An Osogbo based legal practitioner, Tunde Babasola has demanded N10 million from the Osun State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps as damage owing to the manner some officer and men of the command allegedly humiliated him.

The NSCDC officers arrested and humiliated the lawyer before they handed him to the police on the instruction of the State Commandant of the corps. 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.

The NSCDC officials seized the lawyer’s phone from him and transported him from their office at Oke-Ayepe to the Police Headquarters, Ring Road, in a very dehumanizing manner with intent to embarrass the lawyer and subject him to ridicule.

The wife of the lawyer, Mrs Florence Babasola who is a journalist was at the police Headquarters to cover a press conference and she was shocked to see her husband being humiliated by the armed NSCDC men.

When the journalist made attempt to talk to her husband, the NSCDC men embarrassed her and chased her away in a very ridiculous manner.

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.

The CP instantly assigned the Police SIB to investigate the matter and report back to him. He later releases the lawyer to the journalists.

Meanwhile, the lawyer, through the Law firm of one of his senior colleagues, Oye Adediran & Co has demanded for N10 million damages and unreserved apology from Osun State Command of NSCDC for the degrading treatment meted to him.

The letter, signed by Barrister Oye Adediran, addressed to the Osun State Commandant of NSCDC and circulated to media houses in Osun state, threatened that legal action would be instituted NSCDC if the command fails to pay the damage within seven days.

According to the letter, “our instruction is to demand from your command within 7 days as from today (Wednesday) to pay N10miion 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 Devence’ Conspicuously inscriped 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.”

The development has attracted the attention of human right groups in the state including the Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), the Committee of the Democracy and Rights of the People (CDRP).

Also, the Osun State Council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ) and the Nigeria Bar Association (MBA) in Osogbo frowned at the overzealousness of the NSCDC men in the state.

The NUJ, in a statement signed by its Secretary, Mr Bamigbola Boladale called on President Muhamadu Buhari and the minister of Interior, Abdul-Rahamon Dambazau to investigate the matter and bring the overbearing NSCDC men to book before other hapless citizens would be subjected to unwarranted molestation.