The Inspector General Of police (IGP) Usman Alkali Baba has approached the Court to set aside the contempt proceeding and committal order against him. This followed a committal order by the Federal High Court in Abuja. The court had last Tuesday, sentenced Mr. Usman Baba, to three months in prison for disobeying a valid court order.
In the motion filed before the Federal High Court in Abuja, the IGP highlighted grounds why the orders should be set aside, including that he had not been appointed into office as Inspector-General of Police when the case was instituted and the reinstatement order in question granted and the fact 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.
In a statement by the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, the IGP 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. 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 affect 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 Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, on Tuesday, had sentenced the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Baba, to three months in prison for disobeying a court order on the restatement of a former police officer, Patrick Okoli, who claimed he was unlawfully and compulsorily retired from the Nigerian police force.
