A Federal High Court sitting in Asaba, Delta State capital, has awarded a sum of 10 million naira against the Department of State Security, DSS, for detaining business mogul, Antony Okolie over sim card involving Hanan Buhari, daughter of President Muhammadu Buhari.
It would be recalled that Okolie was arrested and detained by DSS for using an MTN sim card previously used by Hanan Buhari.
Okolie said he was put inside the DSS facility for a period of 10 weeks without any charge against, adding that the secret service was waiting for Hanan to come from the United Kingdom.
Justice Nnamdi Dimg awarded a sum of 10m naira in damages for illegal detention of the plaintiff N10m to be paid by the DSS for the abuse of Mr Okolie’s fundamental human rights.
The court however, struck out the charges against Hanan Buhari, and telecoms company, MTN saying that there is no substantial evidence against Hanan and MTN.
The DSS had in court papers claimed they got a directive from the presidency to arrest Okolie as he was using the phone number to solicit for funds from the public, an allegation Okolie’s legal team flatly denied.
Tope Akinyode, lawyer to Okolie in a Twitter post on Thursday confirmed the news of the court ruling. “I’ve been able to persuade the Federal High Court to award N10m against SSS for the 10 weeks detention of Anthony Okolie over an MTN SIM card once used by the daughter of President Buhari, Hanan.” he said.
