The former chairman of the Pension Reform Task Team, Mr. Abdulrasheed Maina, has tendered his case before a Federal High Court, Abuja, to order the Senate and the Inspector General of Police to pay him N1.5bn as compensation for the “trauma and psychological pain” they allegedly caused him and his family.
Maina, who is reportedly on the run, had dragged the Senate, the Senate President, the Clerk of the Senate, the Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service, the Senate Committee State and Local Government Administration, the Inspector General of Police, Senator Aloysius Etuk (The Senate Committee on Establishment and Public Service), and Senator Kabiru Gaya (of Senate Committee on State and Local Government Administration), before the Abuja Federal High Court presided by Justice Adamu Bello to enforce his fundamental human rights and also set aside the warrant of arrest issued against him by the Senate on February 2, 2013.
When the issue sprang up for adoption as written addresses on Wednesday, Maina’s counsel, M. A. Magaji, SAN, asked the court to dismiss the preliminary objections of the respondents and go ahead to award the N1.5bn damages in favour of his client.
In response to the respondents’ argument that the resolution of the decision of the Senate, directing Maina’s immediate arrest and detention, was not served on the Attorney-General of the Federation, as required by Order 10 of the Fundamental Rights Enforcement Rules 2009, Magaji maintained that section 122(2) (c) of the Evidence Act “states that the court can take judicial notice of proceedings of the National Assembly.”
“I urge you to discountenance their counter affidavit and order them to pay my client (Maina) the sum of N1.5bn for the trauma and psychological pain they have subjected him and his family to,” Magaji said. Earlier, counsel for the Senate, Mr. Ken Ikonne, had asked the court to dismiss Maina’s application on the grounds that it did not comply with the procedure of the Fundamental Rights Enforcement Rules 2009, under which it was filed.
