Lekki Robbery Suspect Loses N1m Suit Against Police

A Lagos State High Court in Ikeja has dismissed the suit filed against the police by Ebi Tosan, a suspect in the March 12, 2015 robbery of the Lekki branch of the First City Monument Bank.

Twenty-year-old Tosan, who was nabbed on April 5, had headed for court, seeking bail and claiming compensation for damages in the sum of N1m against the police.
His lawyer, Chief S.W. Baidi, argued that the suspect’s continued detention without bail was an infringement and curtailment of his constitutional rights to personal liberty, freedom of movement and presumption of innocence.
He had sought a declaration that the arrest, torture and continued detention of the suspect without bail, was a violation of his fundamental human rights to personal liberty and freedom of movement pursuant to sections 34(1)(a), 35(1)(4) and Section 41 of the 1999 Constitution.
He prayed for an order directing the police to admit him to bail and to also compensate him with N1m over the unlawful infringement on his rights.
But in a judgment on Friday, Justice Obafemi Adamson, dismissed Tosan’s suit “for lacking in merit.”
The judge said the suspect did not place enough evidence before the court to justify the reliefs he was seeking.
Adamson noted that though Tosan claimed that his public parade by the police had prejudiced his right to presumption of innocence, the suspect did not file any material evidence, like newspapers’ report, to back his claim.
The gang, which Tosan allegedly belonged to, reportedly killed about five persons, including three policemen and a fish hawker, before carting away about N15m belonging to the First City Monument Bank on Admiralty Way, Lekki, Lagos State on March 12, 2015.
The robbers, who reportedly stormed the bank in military uniforms, were said to have engaged the police in a gun battle for about 30 minutes before finally escaping through the lagoon in a speed boat.
Meanwhile, it was learnt that Tosan and three other suspects had been taken before a Lagos magistrate’s court, which ordered their remand in Ikoyi prisons.
The four – Tosan, Duke Odogbo, 38; Lawrence Kingsley, 31; and Ekelemo Kuete, 30 – would remain in custody pending the advice of the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecutions.