Report has revealed how Nigerian lawyer Afe Babalola (SAN) used the Nigerian police to arrest and detain his former employee, Bridget Omon Emengo, in 2021.
Emengo was arrested and detained simply because she instituted an action against him for wrongful termination of her employment, violations of several of her fundamental human rights and those of her son, as well as defamation of her character.
In an October 2021 post, Emengo stated that the team leader of the policemen, one DSP Abel, from the Monitoring and Mentoring Unit of the FCT Police Command, came to arrest her.
He also brought with him the original copy of the petition filed against her. She explained that she was granted bail in the sum of N300,000.00 with two sureties of like sum.
Emengo said that she was driven by officers of the Monitoring and Mentoring Unit all the way to Keffi to be remanded at the Keffi prison, even though she had never heard any pronouncement in open court regarding her remand in Keffi prison.
Meanwhile, her attempted remand in prison custody failed. She said officials at Keffi prison were reportedly surprised when she was presented to them that morning and rejected her.
However, they cited the Nigerian prison’s COVID-19 protocols, which stipulated that all female inmates be sent to the Suleja Prisons, as that was where the quarantine facility for women was located.
As a result, the officers of the Monitoring and Mentoring Unit had no choice but to return to the court to change the remand order to “Suleja prison custody,” she said.
However, by the time they returned to Magistrate Court 10 in Wuse Zone 6, for the Honorable Sadiq Abubarka, Esq., to change the prison location, Emengo’s bail had already been perfected, and she was released.
The case with suit number: NICN/ABJ/29/2021, between Bridget Omonukpon Emengo, Esq., Credan Chikamsi Emengo (suing through his next friend, Bridget Omonukpon Emengo, Esq.) and Afe Babalola, CON, OFR, SAN, Adebayo Adenipekun, SAN, Olu Daramola, SAN, Kehinde Olamide Ogwumiju, SAN, Tunde Babalola, SAN, Peter Oluwaseun Olomola, Esq.
The statement read, “The law firm of Afe Babalola & Co., through this petition, brings to the attention of the Nigerian Police Force the unwholesome and unsubstantiated criminal allegations made against our firm and its staff by Bridget Emengo, a former employee of the firm, and her counsel, Jennifer Ulinghifun.
“Bridget Emengo joined the firm of Afe Babalola & Co. as a Youth Corps member sometime in 2011 on the recommendation of her benefactor, Professor Julius Okojie, a friend of our founding partner, Aare Afe Babalola, SAN.
“Upon completion of her compulsory youth service, she was discharged from the firm. Later, when she was unemployed, the said Professor Julius Okojie requested our Managing Partner to offer her a position at the firm. In November 2012, she was allowed to resume work at the firm.”
Meanwhile, Emengo, in a post on her Facebook page on October 5, 2021, said that on Sunday evening (October 3), while sitting in her house, she saw some police officers in mufti from MMU who told her she had been invited to the FCT police station.
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“”Upon further enquiry the police in mufti refused to disclose his name and they couldn’t tell me what the complaint was about or who wrote the complaint.”
“I asked to be given the invitation so that I could honour it tomorrow morning being Monday as I am with my kids aged 2 and 6 but they couldn’t provide it and insured that I must come along with them today compulsorily,” she said.
“I was taken from my house from Sunday and only released today after which release, I later sent this update to my colleagues in the same closed lawyers group here on Facebook as promised,” Emengo added.
Emengo further explained that the petition upon which the arrest warrant was issued was written by the law firm of Afe Babalola & Co, (her former employers).
“Simply because I instituted an action against them for wrongful termination of my employment, violations of several of my fundamental human rights and that of my son as well as the defamation of my character, all orchestrated by Kehinde Ogunwumiju, SAN simply because I am a woman and from a minority tribe, which he claims is not “the Baptized tribe” and had deposed to facts and pleaded documents in support of all my claims before the court,” she added.
(Saharareporters)
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