Nearly three years
after being assaulted and battered by men of the Nigerian Police Force and
officials of Guaranty Trust Bank Plc in Abuja, a senior reporter with TheNEWS
Magazine / PM News, Mr. Desmond Utomwen, has been awarded the sum of N100
million as damages against the bank by an Abuja High Court.
Mr. Utomwen,
supported by the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ, had dragged the bank and
the Nigeria Police Force before the court for battering and assaulting him
while officially investigating a protest at the Area 3, Garki branch of the
bank by some customers who had accused the bank of inexplicable and irregular
withdrawals via ATM from their accounts domiciled at the bank on Friday,
December 11, 2009
The presiding
judge, Justice U. K. Kekemeke while delivering the judgment in the matter
decried the assault on the journalist who was merely carrying out his
legitimate duties.
Utomwen had
resorted to the court following repeated demands to the Bank and Police for a
thorough investigation and compensation proved abortive. The journalist briefed
Mr. Ugochukwu Ezekiel from Mr. Festus Keyamo’s Chambers, who then proceeded to the Abuja High Court
to seek redress.
The journalist
sought for a declaration by the court that his attack and battering with guns,
beating to unconsciousness, bundling into Police vehicle and detention for many
hours without access to any form of medical treatment by the Police and the
bank’s officials is inhuman and degrading and
amounts to a violation of his rights as enshrined in Section 34 of the 1999
Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He also urged the
court to hold that the forceful collection of his Digital Camera and Digital
Recorder as well as his official identity card issued by TheNEWS magazine and
cash of N2000 by his attackers amounts to forceful acquisition of his property
and a violation of his right to own moveable property as enshrined in Section
44 of the 1999 Constitution.
The journalist was
also miffed by his obstruction from receiving and publishing information about
the peaceful protest of the aggrieved bank’s customers on that fateful day.
The NUJ was
resolute in its support for Mr. Utomwen and decried the usually unnecessary
assaults meted out to Journalists in the course of their legitimate duties
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