Nigeria Inspector-General of Police, Usman baba Alkali, has filed a motion at a Federal High Court in Abuja, seeking a set aside of the order of the court which sentenced him to 3 months in the Correctional Center for Court contempt.
Newsonline reports that Usman in the motion prayed the court that at the time the officer for whom he was sentenced was sacked from the Nigeria Police Force and the time the court gave order that he been reinstated into the force he was not the IGP.
Usman Alkali also told the Federal High Court that the contempt proceedings for which he was sentenced were served via substituted means in November 2018 and January 2019 respectively, on the then Inspector-General of Police, and not on him as the incumbent.
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A statement by the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Olumuyiwa Adejobi, released on Friday, read in part “The IGP in his disposition further noted that even before his assumption of Office, official steps had been taken by his predecessors toward complying with the reinstatement of Patrick C. Okoli, the plaintiff, as ordered by the Court. As noted by him, this was evidenced by an official letter addressed to the Police Service Commission on the approval of the then Inspector General of Police, as far back as 2015, and before the court order of November 29th, 2022, requesting the Commission to issue a reinstatement letter to the plaintiff and also effect his promotion in line with the order of the Court and in the exercise of their statutory authority in that regard.
“Hence, the grounds for the contempt proceedings ought not to have existed, ab initio.”
