A Lagos High Court sitting in Yaba, on Tuesday, ordered a hearing notice to be issued on the former Lagos State Commissioner of Police, Marvelous Akpoyibo, the Inspector General of Police, and three others.
They are to appear in the suit filed by a human rights activist, Akaraka Chinwe Ezeonara and three others over the killing of four Ekwulobia youths who were Ladipo Market traders allegedly killed by the Police. Their case has come to be known as Ekwulobia Four.
The trial judge, Justice O. Sule- Amzat gave the order following the submission by the claimant’s counsel, Miss Olamide Awakan and the third respondent counsel, Mr Adewale Russell.
At the resumed hearing of the case, Awakan told the court that the case file was returned from the Court of Appeal for the court to rehear the suit.
She noted that the appellate court ordered in a judgment that the High Court should re-hear the suit following the ruling by Justice Oyindamola Ogala who had dismissed the fundamental rights suits filed by the claimants on behalf of the deceased.
A N4 billion fundamental right enforcement suit was filed against the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Akpoyibo, and three others, over the alleged extra-judicial killing of the four Ladipo Market traders.
The traders; Anthony Ezenwafor, Chukwuemeka Ezeofor, Izuchukwu Ezeama, and Aloysius Osigwe were allegedly killed by the police on 21st July .2001.
The applicants, Akaraka Chinweike Ozeonara; Chris Okpara; Remigus Ezenwane and Ifeanyi Okoye had on 27th March 2014, approached the court for a declaration that the killing of the four Ladipo boys by the Police Officers serving under the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Aguda Police Station, attached to Area ‘C’ Police Command, Surulere, Lagos State, Nigeria was unconstitutional, extrajudicial and an infringement on the right to life, liberty and dignity.
Delivering judgment on the appeal, the Court of Appeal had held that the action brought before the lower court was properly filed under the auspices of the Fundamental Rights Enforcement Procedure Rules because it was brought by an association to enforce the right of its members that had been breached.
Justice Obande Festus Ogbuinya and Justice Balikisu Bello Aliyu agreed with the lead judgment by Justice Tukur that the appeal was meritorious.
They agreed that the ruling of the trial court delivered on the 9th Marc, 2015 be set aside and ordered that the case proceeds to the lower court for a determination on the merit but before a different Judge other than Justice O. A. Ogala.