A High Court sitting in Jos on Tuesday dismissed an application by a former Deputy Governor of the Central Bank of Nigeria, Obadiah Mailafia, seeking to stop the Nigeria Police Force from investigating him.
The application was brought before the court after the police invited Mailafia to its Abuja headquarters following a radio interview he granted in which he accused a northern governor of being a leader of Boko Haram.
Mailafia had been invited by the Department of State Services to appear at its Jos office. But while the former CBN deputy governor was still preparing to honour the DSS invitation, he received another invitation from the police authorities to appear at its Abuja office over the same issue, a development which made him approach the court on the premise that the police have no right to invite him for interrogations on the same subject that the DSS had earlier invited him.
However, Plateau State High Court presided over by Justice Arum Ashom on Tuesday ruled that although the DSS has the right to invite Mailafia over the matter touching on internal security, the police also has the right to invite him for questioning.
Justice Ashom held that the double invitation by both the DSS and the police on the same issue did not amount to double jeopardy as moved by the applicant’s counsel.
But the counsel for Mailafia, Yakubu Bawa, who is also the Plateau State Chairman of Nigeria Bar Association, argued that the invitation of his client by the police after he had honoured the of the DSS was illegal, unlawful, unconstitutional and ultra-vires his fundamental right which amount to duplication of security details on the same related issues.
Bawa said he would brief his client to know the next line of action.
