ARMED robbery suspect Ebi Tosan has sued the Nigeria Police Force for false imprisonment after he was arrested and paraded as one of those responsible for attacking the Lekki branch of First City Monument Bank.  

Mr Tosan, 20, was one of four suspects arrested and paraded by the police over the March 12, robbery at the bank and detained without bail. He is thus seeking damages to the tune of N1m (£3,200), claiming that it was unlawful for the police to continue to keep him in detention without admitting him to bail. 

Arrested on April 5, Mr Tosan, was paraded by the police along with Duke Odogbo 38, Lawrence Kingsley 31 and Ekelemo Kuete, 30. He is seeking a court order directing the police to immediately release him on bail. 

In a fundamental rights suit he filed through his lawyer, Chief SW Baidi, Mr Tosan argued that his client’s continued detention without bail was an infringement and curtailment of the applicant’s constitutional right to personal liberty, freedom of movement and presumption of innocence. Besides, he asked the court to declare that his arrest, torture and continued detention by the State Anti-Robbery Squad, (Sars) Ikeja without bail was a violation of his human rights, preserved by sections 34(1)(a), 35(1)(4) and Section 41 of the 1999 constitution. 

Respondents in the suit are the Lagos State commissioner of police and the officer-in-charge of Sars, Ikeja, Abba Kyari. In a 26-paragraph affidavit filed in support of the originating summons, deposed to by one Tamuno Amos, who addressed himself as the suspect’s uncle, he added that his nephew’s continued detention by the police was a deliberate act by the police to extract a confessional statement from him on the alleged offence. 

Amos, who submitted he had not been allowed to see his nephew since his arrest, claimed, the applicant is suffering on daily basis without access to food, bath and other conveniences and he may die in custody unless granted bail. On July 9, the suspect had secured an order from Justice Lateefa Okunnu of a Lagos State High Court in Ikeja, directing the police to produce him in court on July 16. 

On Thursday, however, when the matter came up, the police did not bring the suspect to court and his originating summons slated for hearing could not be heard. Justice Okunnu, while adjourning hearing of the application till October 22, ordered that the Lagos State attorney-general should be joined as a respondent. 

She added that if there was any urgency, the applicant could appear before October 22 before another judge who will be sitting during the court’s annual vacation, which begins next week. In the said robbery on Admiralty Way, Lekki, Lagos, a gang of armed robbers, stormed the bank wearing military uniforms and engaged the police in a gun battle before carting away about N15m (£48,000). 

About five persons, including three policemen and a fish hawker, were reportedly killed while several others sustained injuries during the non-stop shooting said to have lasted about 30 minutes. It was one of the most daring robbery attacks in Lagos recently.