A businessman, Anthony Okolie, has been awarded the sum of N10m by a Federal High Court in Asaba, Delta state. He was detained by the Department of State Services (DSS) for using a sim card that was previously owned by President Buhari’s daughter, Hanan Buhari.
Okolie, an Asaba-based businessman, was arrested and detained by the DSS on July 19, 2019, for using a telephone line previously owned by Hanan.
According to Okolie, he was in custody, handcuffed, until September 22, 2019, for a period of 10 weeks, without any charges, as the DSS awaited Hanan, who was studying in the UK at the time.
Following his release, Okolie filed a lawsuit against the DSS, President Buhari’s daughter, and MTN for N500m in damages for the violation of his rights.
On Thursday, the court, presided over by Justice Nnamdi Dimg alt=”Update: Court awards N10m to man who sued DSS and Buhari”s daughter, Hanan, after he was illegally detained for buying sim card previously used by her’ class=”img-responsive text-center” style=”margin: auto;”ba, awarded him N10m in damages to be paid by the DSS for the abuse of Mr Okolie’s fundamental human rights. However, the charges against Hanan Buhari and telecoms company, MTN, were struck out due to lack of substantial evidence.
In court papers, the DSS claimed they received a directive from the presidency to arrest Okolie as he was allegedly using the phone number to solicit funds from the public, an allegation Okolie’s legal team denied.
Tope Akinyode, Okolie’s lawyer, confirmed the court ruling in a Twitter post on Thursday. “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.
