The police officers involved in the suit filed are Commissioner of Police, Special Fraud Unit, Ikoyi, Lagos, Mrs. Nkem Ezeonwu; Assistant Commissioner of Police, Akinyemi Bose; and Inspector John Akogun of the Financial Monitoring and Intelligence Unit of the Police Special Fraud Unit, Lekki, Lagos; Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, Edgal Imohimi; Divisional Police Officer, Ejigbo Police Division, Mr. Ovie Dominic; the Divisional Crime Officer, Ejigbo Police Division; and one Mrs. Motunrayo of the Ejigbo Police Division.
Siblings demand N200m as damages from parents, police for placing them under house arrest
Four siblings filed a suit against their parents, Pius and Eucharia Anowai, and some police officers before Justice Babs Kuewumi of the Federal High Court sitting in Lagos for placing them under house arrest.
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Chioma, 24, Stephen 22, Rita 20 and Joseph are demanding N200 million as damages from the defendants.
Chioma and her siblings, who belong to the Holy Ghost School Fellowship, accused the defendants of arrest, detention, intimidation, torture, humiliation, harassment and forcible extraction of undertaking from them to denounce their membership.
The applicants who declared that the constitution guarantees that they are entitled to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion, including the freedom to change their religion or belief from Roman Catholicism to the Holy Ghost School Fellowship.
They are seeking the court's order to declare the seizure of their phones by ACP Bose Akinyemi and John Akogun as a violation of their rights.
Chioma told the court that her parents robbed her and her siblings of affection, care, and emotional support by living together in the same house even after being constructively separated.
She added that due to their continuous disharmony, their father relocated to another place thereby abandoning them and allegedly refusing to take care of them until they attained adulthood.
The 24-year-old Pharmacy graduate said their mother introduced and made them members of Holy Ghost School Fellowship in 2013 when she was also a member.
She disclosed that her mother had threatened to disown them if they don't denounce their membership, adding that her mother and some police officers from the SFU arrested, tortured and harassed her and one of her siblings, and threw them into a waiting police van on August 31, 2018.
In the suit filed before the court, Chioma and her siblings alleged that the respondents in the suit have brought untold hardship to their lives as they have become unemployable to the business environment.
The defendants did not file any counter motion and the judge further adjourned the case for February 14 for hearing.
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