NDLEA must compensate him, if...

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Category: Personality
Published on Tuesday, 18 October 2011 10:52
Written by Admin
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The National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) may be liable to pay compensation and make public apology to the detained Nollywood Actor, Babatunde Omidina, popularly known as Baba Suwe, who has been in the agency’s net for the past seven days, if it turns out that he is being unlawfully detained. This is because Section 35(6) of the 1999 Constitution provides that “any person who is unlawfully arrested or detained shall be entitled to compensation and public apology from the appropriate authority or person.’’

Section 35(4) & (5) (a) also provides that a detainee should be brought before a court within reasonable time and in case of an arrest or detention in any place where there is a court of competent jurisdiction within a radius of 40 kilometres, a period of one day might be considered to be reasonable.

The actor was arrested at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport, Ikeja, five days ago and he is being detained by the NDLEA over alleged ingestion of substances suspected to be cocaine. However, the agency is yet to establish any trace of the drug in his stomach or any culpability for any drug-related offence against him though he had excreted twice. Speaking on a television programme yesterday, NDLEA’s Director- General, Mr. Femi Ajayi, confirmed that the actor had excreted twice, adding that the agency still needed to make him to excrete about six times. He explained that Baba Suwe was being held at the agency’s clinic and his excretion was being subjected to scientific tests to determine if he actually ingested drug. “Until we have completed the process and nothing is found on him, we cannot say for now that he will be released or not,” Ajayi said.

baba_suweAjayi said if it turned out that the actor did not ingest the substance, he would be released, but ruled out the possibility of compensating him for an unlawful detention. Meanwhile, two human rights lawyers, Messrs Bamidele Aturu and Nnaemeka Amaechina, have condemned Baba Suwe’s continued detention, describing it as illegal and a breach of his fundamental human rights. In a telephone conversation, Aturu said Baba Suwe ought to have been released 24 hours after he was arrested since nothing incriminating has been found on him. In his view, Amaechina said the agency had no legal ground to continue to lay hold on the actor in as much as its scanner has not shown his involvement in drug trafficking.

NDLEA’s Public Relations Officer Mitchel Ofoyeju also told National Mirror that Baba Suwe is still under observation and may remain with the agency for up to two weeks at the extreme. “We are still observing Baba Suwe and we will continue until we have satisfied all the conditions necessary for our investigations. People don’t know how we work. This is the nature of our work,” Ofoyeju said.