JUST IN: Court sentences IGP to 3 months in prison for disobedient

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday sentenced the Inspector-General, (IGP) of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, to 3 months in prison for disobeying a valid court order.

The IGP should be committed to prison and remanded in custody for three months, or until he complies with an order it issued on October 21, 2011, the court ruled in a decision delivered by Justice M. O. Olajuwon and seen by Vanguard.

“If at the end of the three months, the contemnor remains recalcitrant and still refuses to purge his contempt, he shall be committed for another period and until he purges his contempt”, the court held.

Following a lawsuit brought by Mr. Patrick Okoli, a police officer who was forcibly and illegally retired from the Nigerian Police Force, the IGP was sentenced to prison.

Although the Police Service Commission, PSC, approved Okoli’s restoration into the Police, a decision that was upheld by the court, Justice Olajuwon remarked that the IGP failed to abide by the ruling.

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As special and general damages for the unlawful, illegal, and unconstitutional deprivation of the applicant’s rights and privileges as a Senior Officer of the Nigeria Police Force from 1993 till the present, the court additionally ordered the payment of N10 million to the applicant.

In other news, President Muhammadu Buhari has asked border control agencies and security services within member countries of the Lake Chad Basin Commission to stop the circulation of all illegal weapons in the region.

Speaking at the 16th Ordinary Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Lake Chad Basin Commission on Tuesday, the President reminded that illegal movement of arms into the region has heightened the proliferation of small arms and light weapons, a situation which continues to threaten the collective peace and security in the region.

Buhari, who is also Chairman of the 60-year-old Lake Chad Basin Commission, noted that although terrorist threats have been significantly decimated in the region, military actions alone cannot effectively win the war against terrorism.

Illuminating budgetary concerns, which according to him, remain a challenge for all member countries, particularly against the backdrop of declining global inflows and increasing demands, Buhari asserted the need to regularly review the