Braithwaite-Dosunmu Drags IGP To Court Over Police Brutality

Mrs. Ebun Braithwaite-Dosunmu, daughter of late elder statesman and nationalist, DrTunji Briathwaite, has dragged the Inspector-General of Police before the Lagos High Court.
She is seeking damages for molestation, torture, harassment and unlawful arrest and detention.
The suit was filed yesterday, June 6, 2019, on her behalf by legal luminary and human rights activist, Ebun-Olu Adegboruwa.
In the suit, Mrs Braithwaite-Dosunmu is seeking a declaration that her arrest and detention at the Bar Beach police station on May 24, 2019, are illegal and unconstitutional.
She is also asking the court to declare that the acts of the policemen in alleged beating, punching and molesting her in an attempt to forcefully abduct her to Abuja, as constituting flagrant infringement of her fundamental rights.
She maintained that the police should not have been involved in a purely domestic family feud in respect of the running of their paper mill company, for which her brother, Mr Olumide Braithwaite, had allegedly instigated the police to harass and torture her, to the point of endangering her health, leading to her admission in the hospital for treatment.
In a 35 paragraph affidavit deposed in support of the suit, Mrs Braithwaite-Dosunmu stated in the court case that she was the managing director of the paper mill company that was acquired by their family with their late father, Dr Tunji Braithwaite and board resolutions were duly passed and contracts signed for the disposal of certain scraps and disused equipment owned by the company, for which she alleged that her brother was seeking kickbacks from the buyer. He would later author a petition to the police containing spurious and unfounded allegations against her, for which policemen from Abuja stormed her mother’s house to demand for her arrest.
It was at Bar Beach Police Station, in Lagos, whilst she was trying to reach her family and friends on her plight that one of the policemen held her hands backwards whilst the other one rained heavy punches on her face and body, molesting and torturing her in the process.
She is thus seeking five million naira damages and an order of injunction restraining the police from further torture and harassment.
Other reliefs being sought in the case are as follows:
A. A declaration that the arrest of the applicant on Friday the 24th day of May 2019 by the agents, servants, men and officers of the 1st-3rd respondents upon the instigation of the 4th respondent at Bar Beach Police Station, Lagos State, constitutes a flagrant violation of the applicant’s fundamental rights guaranteed under sections 34, 35 and 41 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and Articles 4, 5, 6, 9, 12 and 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap. 10, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990 and is therefore illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.
B. A declaration that the assault, torture and detention of the applicant by the agents, servants, men and officers of the 1st-3rd respondents on Friday the 24th day of May 2019 at Bar Beach Police Station upon the instigation of the 4th respondent constitutes a flagrant violation of the applicant’s fundamental rights guaranteed under sections 34, 35 and 41 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 and Articles 4, 5, 6, 9, 12 and 14 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act Cap. 10, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1990 and are therefore illegal, unconstitutional, null and void.