A Rivers State High Court sitting in Port Harcourt on Wednesday ordered the Nigerian Army to pay N100,000 as damages to the State Neighbourhood and Safety Corps applicants for disrupting their training process and also tagging them a militia group in November 2018.
The 3,998 shortlisted persons, whose training was disrupted by soldiers in Nonwa, Tai Local Government Area of the state, had approached the court, demanding N20 billion damages from the Nigerian Army.
Defendants in the matter were the Nigerian Army, Chief of Defence Staff, General Abayomi Olonisakin, Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant-General Tukur Burutai and General Officer Commanding, 6 Division, Port Harcourt, Major General Jamil Sarham.
The court presided over by Justice S. C. Amadi declared that the disruption of the training and recruitment process of the applicants by the army was illegal and dehumanising to the applicants, who were law-abiding citizens.
The court also held that the army, claiming that it acted on a tip-off that the agency was illegally training a militia group was misleading as the evidence before it proved that they (army) were duly informed.
Justice Amadi ordered that the defendants in the matter pay a general sum of N100,000 as damages to the defendants.
Speaking with newsmen after the ruling, counsel for the applicants (3,998 shortlisted persons for the recruitment, training and screening exercise), Samuel Amatonjie, said the Nigerian Army usurped the functions of the court in declaring the Rivers State House of Assembly law, which created the agency as illegal, hence tagging the applicants a militia group.
He said, “Contrary to the assertion of the Nigerian Army that the applicants of the Rivers State Neighbourhood Safety Corps Agency were a militia group or the Rivers State Government through the agency were training a militia group, the court rather held that the applicants were law-abiding citizens of Nigeria and no criminal record was attached to any of them.
“The court has declared that the invasion of the agency’s training camp by the army was unconstitutional and a breach of the applicant’s fundamental rights.
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