Police get 21-day ultimatum to vacate Peace Corps office

The House of Representatives has ordered the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Idris Ibrahim, to unseal the National Headquarters of

This followed the recommendation of the House Committee on Public Petitions, which conducted investigative hearing into the illegal closure of Peace Corps facilities and the "flagrant disobedience" of subsisting court orders to unseal the facility.

The Police had sealed the Peace Corps headquarters located in Jabi, Abuja Police since February, 2017, the day the property was commissioned.

Justice Gabriel Kolawole of Federal High Court, Abuja, had on November 9, 2017, ordered that the office be unsealed, while awarding N12.5m damages against the Police.

Similarly, Justice John Tsoho of another division of Federal High Court Abuja, had also, on January 15, 2018, judged that Police should vacate the Peace Corps office.

Despite the court judgments, the Police has continued to occupy the facility without obtaining a stay of execution.

Irked by the development, a group under the aegis of Coalition of Civil Society Organisations for Justice and Equity, petitioned the National Assembly, urging it to intervene in order "to save our democracy and insist on rule of law".

Presenting the report of the investigation to the plenary on Wednesday, Chairman of the House Committee on Public Petitions, Nkem Abonta, said the Inspector-General of Police failed to appear before the committee despite the invitations extended to him.

ALSO READ: Buhari rejecting Peace Corps bill shows conspiracy against Nigerian youths - Akoh

Abonta also said, the committee obtained a document which showed that, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) Abubakar Malami wrote to the IGP advising him to honour the subsisting court orders, "in absence of any appeal or valid stay of execution".

He told the House that, a legal officer who represented the IGP at public hearing committed perjury, stressing that, "he lied under oath that there was a valid stay of execution", but failed to produce documents to back his earlier claims.

“It will spell doom for Nigerian democracy and it would also give room to anarchy, if "an agency of the Federal Government (police) continues to disobey orders of the court," Abonta said.

While adopting the recommendation of the committee, the House urged Police to comply with the subsisting court orders and the instruction from the AGF.

The police have 21-day ultimatum days from the commencement of plenary on Wednesday, May 9, 2018.