Woman drags DSS, Lebanese businessman to court, demands N350m

Cajetan Mmuta BENIN

A woman, Miss Odegua Okojie, has dragged operatives of the Department of State Services, (DSS) and a Lebanese businessman to court for detaining her for nine days.

According to the woman, in suit No. FHC/B/cs/120/2019, filed at the Federal High Court, Benin, Edo State capital, Okojie claimed that during the detention, her rights were violated as she was denied access to her lawyer and family members. She added that her mobile phones were seized.

The woman is suing the Director General, DSS, Director, Edo State Command of the DSS and Charles Makhoul, a Lebanese businessman.

Okojie disclosed that she was first taken into DSS’s facility in Benin before she was whisked to Abuja without anyone bothering to explain her offence.

She said: “In the night, I was taken into custody and my two-year-old daughter cried. My daughter wandered about all through the night before she was rescued from the roadside by her school teacher who came to pick her to school. At the DSS facility in Abuja, under video recording, I was forced to accept the sum of N6 million as compensation for the atrocities melted on me by the Lebanese businessman whom I had lived with as a minor to my adult age.”

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

She subsequently demanded for N300million as compensation and damages over the violation of her fundamental rights by the 1st and 3rd respondents.

She also wants the court to award her N50million as exemplary damages for the unlawful and unwarranted infraction on her rights. The case came up before Justice M. G. Umar court, yesterday.

Counsel to the 3rd respondents had 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. The matter was adjourned to February 12, for hearing.