Single Mother Sues DSS, Demands N300m Compensation For Illegal Detention

A single mother Ms Odegua Okojie has dragged the Department State Services (DSS) to court for illegal detention and is demanding N300m as compensation for illegal detention.

In a suit filed at the Federal High Court Benin, the applicant claimed that she was detained for nine days first at the outfit’s facility in Benin and later in Abuja and denied access to her lawyer and family members and her telephone seized.

Besides, she said her daughter who was in school when she was picked had to be rescued in the streets by her teacher after crying all day and the night till the following morning.

Joined in the suit No. FHC/B/cs/120/2019, are the Director-General, DSS, Director, Edo command of the DSS and Charles Makhoul, a Lebanese businessman.

She said at the DSS facility in Abuja, under video recording, she was forced to accept the sum of N6 million as compensation for the atrocities melted on her by the Lebanese businessman whom she had lived with as a minor to her adult age.

She said that the illegal detention from July 9 to 16, 2019, was not only an infringement in her fundamental human rights but also unlawful and unconstitutional.

She subsequently demanded N300 million as compensation/damages over the violation of her fundamental rights by the 1st to 3rd respondents.

The applicant is also asking the court to award her N50 million as exemplary damages for the unlawful and unwarranted infraction on her rights.

The case which came up before Justice M. G. Umar court on Thursday saw the counsel to the 3rd respondents, filed two applications for extension of time to enable him file a counter affidavit to the one filed by the applicant.

The applications were granted by Umar after counsel to the applicant, Mr T. A. Akakhomen, and counsel to the 1st and 2nd respondents, Mrs O. A. Odigwe did not object to the applications.

Similarly, Akahomen and Odigwe also had their respective applications on the matter granted them by the judge.