Call your men to order, lawyers tell IGP

A group of legal practitioners under the aegis of Lawyers of Conscience has appealed to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to call his men to order over their incessant harassment of Abuja-based human rights activist and lawyer, Victor Giwa, Esq.

The lawyers also called on the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, to wade into the matter by urging the IGP to refrain from further harassment of the lawyer.

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Addressing the media on Wednesday on behalf of the group, Barrister Maxwell Opara threatened to sue the IGP in his personal capacity as Kayode Egbetokun if he failed to act accordingly.

Narrating how the issue started, Opara said a staff member of the Nigerian National Petroleum Company Limited, Mrs. Asabe Waziri, bought a multi-million-naira property in the Maitama district of Abuja, which led to a series of litigations.

According to the lawyer, Waziri was alleged to be instigating the police to carry out unlawful acts in respect of cases pending before courts of competent jurisdiction.

The purchase of the multi-million naira property by Waziri was said to have attracted several court cases before the FCT High Court, during which an order was issued for her eviction due to her alleged faceoff with other property owners in the apartment as well as financial infractions in the purchase transaction.

Upon the order of the court, Waziri was evicted from the property but was said to be bitter about the eviction carried out by bailiffs of the Abuja High Court.

Although she was said to have challenged her eviction in court, with the suit still pending, Opara accused Mrs. Waziri of resorting to self-help with the unlawful use of the police to achieve what she could not achieve in open court.

Opara specifically said the police have no business dabbling into a pure civil transaction of property purchase.
The lawyer added that the police, as a law-abiding institution, should allow the matter to be fully determined by the court instead of acting as a court of its own.

He insisted it was wrong for Mrs. Waziri to use the police to harass Victor Giwa, who is counsel to the property developer, Abbey Signatures Ltd.

Opara warned the IGP and his officers to stop taking the law into their own hands with unlawful and illegal support to Waziri to intimidate and harass Victor Giwa.