House of Representatives has ordered the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Idris Ibrahim, within 21 days, vacate national headquarters of Peace Corps of Nigeria. This was fallout of consideration and adoption of recommendations of the House Committee on Public Petitions, which conducted investigation into the reported legal closure of Peace Corps facilities and flagrant disobedience to subsisting court orders to unseal the premises.
Headquarters of the Corps, located at number 57, Iya Abubakar Crescent, off Alex Ekwueme Street, opposite Jabi lake, Abuja, had been under police seal February 28th, 2017. Justice Gabriel Kolawole of Federal High Court, Abuja, had on November 9, 2017, ordered that the office be unsealed, while awarding N12.5 million damages against the Police.
Similarly, Justice John Tsoho of another division of Federal High Court Abuja, had also, on the 15th January, 2018, given judgement that Police should vacate the premises. Chairman of the Committee, Uzoma Nnkem-Abonta, while presenting the report, said series of invitations were sent to the Inspector-General of Police to appear before the committee but he refused to honour them.
He said the Committee obtained a document which showed that, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF), Abubakar Malami, wrote to the IGP and advised him to honour the subsisting court orders, “in absence of any appeal or valid stay of execution,” adding that a legal officer who represented the IGP at a public hearing committed perjury.
According to him, it would spell doom for the nation’s democracy and also give room to anarchy, if “an agency of the federal government continues to disobey orders of the court.” Adopting the recommendations of the Committee, the House urged police to comply with the subsisting court orders and the instruction from the Attorney General of the Federation.
