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The court awarded the N1m in favour of a Lagos-based lawyer, Olukoya Ogungbeje, who said he participated in the #RevolutionNow protest and was among those tear-gassed by security agents.
The nationwide protest was convened by the publisher of SaharaReporters, Omoyele Sowore, who was arrested by the Department of State Services on August 3.
The court, in a judgment by Justice Maureen Onyetenu, declared the disruption of the peaceful protest by the Federal Government, through the police, as “illegal, oppressive, undemocratic and unconstitutional.”
The judge agreed with the applicant in the suit, Ogungbeje, who sued on behalf of himself and other participants in the protest, that the Federal Government deprived them of their right to peaceful assembly and association, in violation of sections 38, 39 and 40 of the 1999 Constitution.
The judge also condemned “the mass arrest, harassment, tear-gassing, and clamping into detention” of the protesters.
Ogungbeje had urged the court to award N500m as general and exemplary damages against the Federal Government, DSS and the Attorney General of the Federation, but the court only awarded N1m.
The judge also upheld the defence of the DSS that it was not involved in the disruption of the protest.
In the affidavit, which he filed in support of the suit, Ogungbeje said when he was co-opted into the #RevolutionNow protest, as a lawyer, he checked the constitution and found that it was lawful.
BINNABOOK PUBLISHERS
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