Cour Orders Nigerian Navy to Pay N75m to Bricklayer

Bassey Inyang in Calabar

A Federal High Court sitting in Calabar has ordered the Nigerian Navy to pay the sum of N75 million to a 39-year-old man, Mr. Etim Asuquo Akpan, as damages for illegally shooting, torturing, and holding him hostage sometime in 2012.

The court also ordered the Nigerian Navy to tender an unreserved apology to Akpan in any national daily.

Delivering judgment Monday on a matter in suit number FHC/CA/M35/2013, the presiding judge, Justice Inyang Ekwo, said men who are armed by law to protect the citizenry should not turn around and brutalise or take their lives, outside the law of those they are supposed to protect.

Akpan, a bricklayer, dragged the Nigerian Navy to court in 2013 for shooting him in both legs for no reason, torturing him, and tying him with chains to a hospital bed, thereby holding him hostage while he was receiving treatment.

Akpan, who hails from Akwa Ibom State, stated that the incident occurred in 2012 in Calabar, while he was on his way to work and suddenly he was confronted by the personnel of the Nigerian Navy attached to the then Quick Intervention Squad of the Cross River State Government.

Details later…