By Uche Mbah
A Federal High Court in Abuja Monday ordered that the International Passport belonging to a one-time Rivers state governor, Peter Odili, be released with immediate effect.
The passport was seized by the Nigerian Immigration Service, NIS, who maintained that they were acting on the instructions of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC.
The presiding Judge, Hon. Justice Inyang Ekpo, ruled that there is no justification for the NIS to continue holding the passport.
Odili was the governor of Rivers State from 1999 to 2007.
His passport was seized on June 20, 2021, at Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja, by officials of NIS, on his return to Nigeria from a routine medical trip abroad. Odili said he had been screened and was waiting for his luggage when an Immigration Officer came to him to ask for the passport on the pretence of checking something, and never returned it to him.
No reason was given to him but the NIS was to say later that its action was because Odili is on the watch list of the EFCC.
But Justice Ekwo in his ruling declared the seizure “contemptuous”, saying that it infringed on his fundamental rights.
Besides giving a restraining order to NIS from any form of arrests, intimidation, and harassment, he ordered NIS to write a letter of apology to Odili for the embarrassment they have caused him, saying that the excuse that he was on the EFCC watch list is not tenable, and violates an existing court order.
Besides, according to him, such a claim was not backed by any evidence.
“The reason given by the respondent for the seizure of the passport is that he was on the watch list of the EFCC”, he said.
“This claim is not backed by any evidence showing that the EFCC requested the seizure of his passport.
“It is settled law that any pleading that is not backed by evidence is of no effect,”.
The court also held that Odili produced judgment in evidence proving that the EFCC had no legal backing to order the seizure of his passport.
“The travel passport is not a document that can just be taken away from a citizen by the whims and caprices of any person.
“Such seizure must be done in strict compliance with the law,” Justice Ekwo said.
Odili had approached the court to challenge the seizure of his travel passport with number B50031305 by the NIS.
In an eight-paragraph affidavit to which he deposed, Odili said the passport was seized upon his arrival.
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