Court hears Tinubu’s case against Army April 20

A Federal High Court in Lagos on Tuesday adjourned further hearing till April 20, 2015, in the fundamental rights enforcement suit filed by a national leader of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, against the Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. Kenneth Minimah.

Tinubu sued Minimah over the deployment of soldiers to lay siege on his No. 26 Bourdillon Street, Ikoyi, Lagos home, between February 9 and 11, 2015 on “an order from above.”

A court presided over by Justice John Tsoho on March 26, granted an interim injunction, banning the military siege on Tinubu’s home and stopping any possible arrest or detention of the applicant during the period of the general elections.

After granting the order, the judge adjourned till Tuesday to take the substantive suit. But at the resumed proceeding, only the applicant’s lawyer, Chukwuma Onwuemene, holding the brief of Mr. Femi Falana (SAN), was in court. Minimah was not represented.

Onwuemene however prayed the court for a short adjournment, saying, “My Lord, considering the nature of this application, we humbly pray for a very short date.”

But Tsoho recalled that the applicant had already secured an interim injunction shielding him from arrest and intimidation by the military, adding that the court could not give any date before the Easter vacation.

He therefore adjourned till April 20 for hearing.

Tinubu is seeking a declaration of the court that the military siege on his home was an infringement on his fundamental human right to private and family life, protected under Section 37 of the Constitution.

The former governor of Lagos State also considered the military action as a violation of sections 35 and 42 of the Constitution as well as Articles 2 and 5 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights (Ratification and Enforcement) Act.

He claimed that the military siege on his home caused him and his family “psychological and mental torture.”