A High Court of the Federal Capital Territory has ordered that the Chairman of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), Ibrahim Lamorde be arrested and remanded in prison custody for contempt.
The court ordered him to be remanded in prison until he is purged of the offence.
Justice Peter Kekemeke, further ordered the Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Abubakar, to execute the order against the EFCC chairman and Mr Friday Ebelo, an operative of the anti-graft agency within two weeks if the chairman failed to apologise to a lawyer, whose rights were violated by the commission.
The court had on March 8 and December 5 of 2012 ordered Lamorde to release the call-to-bar certificate of Mr Innocent Onwu, apologise to him through a national newspaper and pay him the sum of N50,000 as compensation.
Onwu, an Abuja-based lawyer, filed a motion for the enforcement of his fundamental human rights on October 31, 2011 after he was detained by the EFCC between June 27 and July 1, 2011 without order of court, following a petition by the Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC), accusing him of fraud in a case he was investigating for a client.
He had also demanded N300 million as compensation for the unlawful search of his house and office and the trauma he suffered in the hands of the EFCC.
The lawyer claimed his then ailing mother was admitted at the Garki General Hospital on the day he was first invited.
He further said the EFCC failed to release him to attend to the woman after she died three days later.
