Good morning, friends.
If you did not read my yesterday's post, please do read it so that you can have a full understanding of today's discussion.

My readers would recall that I raised five issues for determination in my yesterday's post each of which shall be addressed every working day for the next five working days starting from today,26th September, 2014.The one I will first address out of the five is as follows:

ISSUE FOR DAY 1
WERE THE NIGERIA POLICE RIGHT TO HAVE HELD MR . ABDULMALIK SA'IDU IN CUSTODY FOR SEVENTEEN WORKING DAYS BEFORE CHARGING HIM TO COURT OVER THE ALLEGATION OF FRAUD?

THE LEGAL POSITION
Section 35 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria makes provision for the right of an individual to personal liberty subject, however, to some exceptions. For those exceptions, see section 35(1)(a),(b),(c),(d),(e) and(f) of the Constitution. For economy of space, permit me to avoid listing those exceptions here but I want to state that MR.ABDULMALIK SAIDU's apprehension and detention constitute an exception to his right to personal liberty under section 35(1)(c) of the Constitution only to the extent that such arrest and detention were done for the purpose of bringing him before a court upon reasonable suspicion that he attempted to defraud a Commissioner.

Further,when a person is apprehended or detained by the police upon reasonable suspicion of his having committed a criminal offence, he shall be brought before a court of law within a reasonable time(see section 35(4) of the Constitution). Luckily,section 35(5)(a) and (b) of that same constitution does not leave the phrase 'reasonable time', as contained in section 35 (4), open-ended. The phrase is defined in those provisos to section 35 (5) to the effect that a person arrested or detained as in the case of Mr.Abdulmalik, as above, shall be charged to court within a period of one day if the arrest or detention is done in a place which has a court of competent jurisdiction within a radius of forty kilometres . However, if a suspect was arrested and detained in a place that has a court of competent jurisdiction outside a radius of forty kilometres, he must be charged to court within a period of two days or such longer period as may be considered reasonable by the court.

In the case of Mr.Abdulmalik, he spent seventeen working days in the police custody from the date of his arrest upon suspicion of fraud though there is a counter allegation that he was arrested because he posted on his Facebook timeline details of fertiliser scandal that rocked Katsina State recently.Maybe before I go further, I should touch that clause that says a suspect must be charged to court within two days or such period of time that the court may consider reasonable in case he is arrested or detained where there is no competent court of jurisdiction within a radius of fourty kilometres. Without prejudice to the Authority of the Nigeria Police Force, it is my candid opinion that to have held the suspect in that case, Mr.Abdulmalik in custody for seventeen working days cannot be found reasonable by the appropriate authority in the circumstances in view of the foregoing provisions of the Constitution.

I, therefore,conclude that this act on the part of the police is questionable.

Having cleared issue one, the next issue I shall be addressing on Monday is whether or not Mr.Abdulmalik has any remedy against the Authority of the Nigeria Police.Watch out for my take on this. Have a wonderful weekend!