The Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, says he has filed a motion to set aside the contempt proceeding and committal order against him.
Force spokesman, Olumuyiwa Adejobi, in a statement Friday morning, said the Police Chief explained that he had not been appointed into office as IGP when the case was instituted and the reinstatement order in question granted.
TheFact Daily learns that in the motion filed on Thursday at a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, Baba highlighted extensively grounds on which the orders should be set aside.
It will be recalled that Justice Mobolaji Olajuwon, of a Federsl High Court in Abuja, had on Tuesday, 29 November, sentenced the IGP to three months Imprisonment for faling to comply with an order made on October 21, 2011, to reinstate a police officer, Patrick Okoli, who claimed he was unlawfully and compulsorily retired from the Police Force.
The IGP, in the motion, also argued that the contempt proceedings were served via substituted means in November 2018 and January, 2019 respectively, on the then Inspector-General of Police, and not on him as the incumbent.
“The IGP in his disposition further noted that even before his assumption of Office, official steps had been taken by his predecessors toward complying with the reinstatement of Patrick C. Okoli, the plaintiff, as ordered by the Court”, the statement said.
“As noted by him, this was evidenced by an official letter addressed to the Police Service Commission on the approval of the then Inspector General of Police, as far back as 2015, and before the court order of November 29th, 2022, requesting the Commission to issue a reinstatement letter to the plaintiff and also effect his promotion in line with the order of the Court and in the exercise of their statutory authority in that regard. Hence, the grounds for the contempt proceedings ought not to have existed, ab initio”, the statement said further.
The statement also expressed the IGP’s reassurances to Nigerians of his unalloyed commitment and steadfastness in defending the rule of law and respecting judicial authorities and hence will not, “wittingly or unwittingly, disobey any order validly granted by courts of competent jurisdiction”.
