Embattled Lagos based comedian, Babatunde Omidina, also known as Baba Suwe, on Monday urged a Federal High Court in Lagos to vacate an earlier order made by it on October 21, which empowered the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to detain him for additional fifteen days.
According to the actor the NDLEA while applying for the order concealed material facts relating to his health and circumstances of his arrest and detention and that the application also contained contradictory facts.
The comedian also stated in the motion filed on his behalf by his counsel, Bamidele Aturu,that the application through which the drug agency obtained the order was grossly irregular and constitutes an incurable abuse of the processes of the court.
Omidina also argued that the application upon which Justice Okechukwu okeke grand the order was contrary to public policy and constitutes wanton violation of his fundamental rights.
Also in a twelve paragraphs affidavit deposed to by the first son of the suspect, olusola omidina, the claimant stated that his father is a diabetic patient and may die in detention if the order of the court is not discharged forthwith.
He maitained that NDLEA did not disclose to the court that the applicant has been detained since the 12th of October 2011 without trial before a court of competent jurisdiction and that he had defecated 3 times without any illegal narcotic substance in his faeces.
The motion is however expected to be heard on October 26.
It will be recalled that Justice O Okeke had granted the request of the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency (NDLEA) to further keep Omidina in custody for 15 more days.
Justice Okeke made the order after entertaining arguments on an ex-parte application from NDLEA’s lawyer, Theresa Asuquo.
The application was supported by a 29-paragraph affidavit deposed to by an NDLEA intelligence officer, Femi Johnson Osifuye and a CT scan result issued by a consultant radiologist with the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH), Dr Subhash Vijayvargiya.
The result, according to the affidavit, confirmed that Baba Suwe has large amount of narcotic drugs in his body.
The NDLEA, it would be recalled, had arrested the comedian on October 12 while trying to board an Airfrance to Paris on suspicion that the scanning machine at the Murtala Mohammed International Airport indicated that he had ingested substances suspected to be hard drugs.
According to the affidavit, Osifuye averred that following Baba Suwe’s arrest, the man was placed on observation pending when he would defecate the ingested substances, but that while on observation, Baba Suwe refused to eat claiming that he eats only once in three days.
He added that as a result of Baba Suwe’s refusal to eat, he had not excreted the ingested substances.
According to Osifuye, after the comedian made the second excretion and no substance was found, the NDLEA had to take him to LASUTH for another CT scan for a second opinion on whether he indeed ingested the narcotic drugs, and the test confirmed large amount of drugs in his body.
The NDLEA official added that with the confirmation that Baba Suwe still has hard drugs in his stomach, he is bound to excrete it with time, adding that his case was not an isolated one as it takes some suspects a longer time to excrete than others, hence the need to further keep him in custody.
Osifuye, who noted that it would take the comedian about 5 to 7 days to complete excreting the whole drug in his stomach, added that the suspect must be in custody for the agency to retrieve the ingested drugs.
Besides, the agency stressed that it would be in the interest of the suspect to excrete the ingested substances so as to prevent them from bursting in his abdomen, a situation the agency argued might lead to his death.
24/7 News
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