Recently a known activist and popular human rights lawyer, barrister samuel ihensekhien jnr have had course to actually approached different Nigeria courts in many instances to unfreeze accounts of parties and clients, who have no pending criminal matters or are not subject of any criminal investigation anywhere, the surprising thing is, is that most of this security agency just resort to sheer impunity in other to prove a point and then they hide it under the guise of investigation of a non existent criminal matter. In the recent case as stated above-mentioned,which involved an illegal court orders secured by legal officers of Nigeria police force in the case of IGP vs Zenith bank Plc and others before Magistrate taribo Zim of fct senior magistrate court, bwari, the lady in question whose account was blocked,in the person of Mrs chindinma chukwurah just woke up one morning on 5th July 2022 and discovered that she cannot operate and withdraw funds from her accounts in that regard ,from that day to on the 9th September 2022, when the then honourable taribo Zim of the dutse -fct magistrate court ,which granted the illegal court orders to the bank and police ,then also unfreeze and set aside the illegal court orders of pnd on Mrs chindinma chukwurah zenith bank account.The said women actually suffered.
The said mrs chindinma chukwurah has never been involved in any criminal matter, nor has she been involved in any shaddy business of any kind.
Her account was just blocked by Nigeria police fib unit for no just cause.The applicant being Mrs chukwurah chindinma had no other option then to approach the courts ,after all entreaties and persuation to the nigeria police proved futile and also around this time ,she was in dire need of money for medical assistance.
The honourable magistrate court presided over by honourable taribo Zim after discovering the gross error of the freezing orders of this bank account in the above case actually unfreeze her account with a caveat for the Nigeria police force not to block same again.
In the above case, it should be noted that,the zenith bank plc placed a pnd on the miss chindinma chukwurah account, was simply out of carelessness and high handness of the Nigeria police force fib unit. ,As the police in a case of mistaken identity with notorious ponzi scheme operator ,the famous marksman chinedu of failed chinmark investment,the police mistook Mrs chukwurah account with that of fruadster mentioned.The nigeria police actually directed the lady bankers to put a lien or pnd on the lady account for no just cause and not for any clear reason. In dealing with this issues, the pertinent question to ask is this:
1, On whether the Police can freeze accounts without legal proceedings:
"Section 4 of the Police Act does not expressly grant such power or prerogative to the police. In the course of their investigations, if the police must have recourse to and take copies of bankers' books, they must strictly comply with section 7 of the Bankers Books Evidence Act (supra). They must institute a legal proceeding before freezing an accounts.
Moreso the court ,after a carefull consideration of the issues in this case above, the court awarded a paltry two hundred thousand naira in favour of Mrs chukwurah chindinma against zenith bank plc representing cost of litigation,and refused any further award of costs against the zenith bank PLC and nigeria police force.
Alot and the last has not been heard of matters like this, as the Nigeria populace should start embrazing public interest litigations on cases of this nature against security agencies and the Nigeria banks.As that is the only solution and resort for cases of this nature
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