Suit against Agip, DSS: Court fixes May 9th for final addresses

Nathan Tamarapreye, Yenagoa

The Bayelsa State High Court sitting in Yenagoa has fixed May 9th,2024 for the adoption of final written addresses in the suit filed by a Youth Activist, Collins Opumie against the Department of State Security (DSS) and the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NOAC) over his illegal arrest and detention for over two years.

The presiding Judge, Justice Ebiyon Charlie, while adjourning to May 9th based on the plea for one more adjourned date for the preparation of the final address and argument by the 1st set of defendants, the Nigerian Agip Oil Company, warned against any attempt to delay the suit.

According to the judge, all parties to the suit numbered YHC/324/2022 were supposed to submit final addresses and argue their position based on points of law.

But the Counsel to Agip, pleaded with the Court for one more adjournment date for their final address to be ready and the Court obliged.

The Bayelsa Youth Activist, Opumie, had filed a suit against his illegal arrest and detention with demands for the sum of N9 billion in damages.

He is also praying the court to declare that his arrest, torture and subsequent detention without proper food and medical attention and access to family members for two years for false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.

In his eight prayers before the Court, Opumie sought the order of the court against the defendants jointly and severally “for damages suffered as a result of the false imprisonment for two (2) years under the custody of the DSS (2nd set of defendants) in their prison facilities without bail or arraignment in a court of law at the instance of the Agip (1st set of defendants) false and malicious complaints/reports against him”

“An injunction restraining the 2nd and 3rd set of defendants from further harassing or attempts to arrest and detain the claimant at the instance of the 1st set of defendants.”

Opumie, who is an indigene of the Opuama Community in the Southern Ijaw Local Government area of the State and among Niger Delta Youths that embraced the Presidential Amnesty Programme (PAP), in his statement of claims, accused the DSS in Yenagoa of allegedly abducting him at the instance of the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) in a Gestapo style, physically and mentally torture him, tie and throw him into the boot of a vehicle and taken to Abuja like a common criminal without the knowledge of his family and access to medical care.