IGP moves to stop forum shopping over Lekki estate dispute

The Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Olatunji Disu, has cautioned officers of the Force Intelligence Department (FID) and other police formations against encouraging forum shopping by complainants seeking to use the police to settle civil disputes.

The IGP was also said to have warned police officers against intervening in matters that are essentially civil but are deliberately presented as criminal cases to invoke the powers of the police.

A senior police source told our correspondent that the directive followed an alleged attempt by a resident of a Lekki estate, who is reportedly indebted to the estate management for electricity and service charges, to secure the arrest, detention and prosecution of members of the leadership of GThomes Estate Residents Association, Lekki, allegedly to compel the reconnection of her estate services.

It was gathered that the complainant initially reported the matter at the Ilasan Divisional Police Station, Lekki, where she was reportedly advised to settle her outstanding debts or seek civil remedies over her alleged disconnection from the estate’s power supply.

The resident was said to have accumulated electricity bills and service charges of more than N5 million over a period of more than one year.

According to information available to our correspondent, the complainant subsequently escalated the matter to Area J Command, Ibeju-Lekki, but reportedly failed to secure police intervention.

She thereafter took the complaint to the Zone 2 Police Command Headquarters, Onikan, Lagos, and later to the Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) Annex, Alagbon, Lagos.

However, police authorities at the various formations allegedly declined to intervene, maintaining that the dispute was essentially civil in nature.

Undeterred, the complainant reportedly took the matter to Force Headquarters in Abuja, where members of the estate’s leadership were subsequently invited by the FID for interrogation.

Meanwhile, the estate’s leadership has secured an order of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division, directing the police to maintain the status quo pending the determination of a suit challenging the FID invitation.

The order was reportedly granted on Monday, September 7, by Justice Friday Ogazi.

Counsel to the estate’s executive committee, Olayinka Olajuwon, had argued in a Fundamental Rights Enforcement Procedure (FREP) suit that compelling his clients to travel to Abuja over a dispute that is fundamentally civil would amount to an infringement of their constitutional rights and impose undue hardship on them.

Olajuwon noted that the estate, the complainant and all members of the estate’s leadership are resident in Lagos, arguing that the Abuja invitation was unreasonable in the circumstances.

The lawyer further contended that the intervention of the FID in a matter that had previously been reviewed by the Lagos Annex of the FCID was suspicious and could amount to forum shopping by influential individuals seeking to use law enforcement agencies to intimidate, harass or pressure his clients.

“This is a clear case of abuse of police time and resources,” the lawyer said.

The respondents in the suit are expected to appear before Justice Ogazi later this month to show cause why the reliefs sought by the applicants should not be granted.

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