Court orders SSS to pay N5m damages

By The Citizen

An Abuja Federal High Court on Monday ordered the State Security Services to pay the Peace Corps of Nigeria, a Non-Governmental Organisation, the sum of N5m as compensatory damages.

The court, presided by Justice E. S. Chukwu, gave the order in its judgment in a legal action filed against the SSS by Trustees of the Peace Corps of Nigeria.

The plaintiffs had accused the defendant of harassment, as well as the violation of their members' fundamentals rights to freedom of association.

In the judgment, the court also ordered the security agency to refrain from interfering with the lawful activities and programs of the Peace Corps.

Justice Chukwu also stopped further arrest, detention, intimidation and harassment of officers of the Peace Corps by the SSS.

The judge held that it was barbaric and uncivilised for the operatives of the SSS to resort to stripping officials of the Peace Corps naked in public for no cause that could be defended in a law court.

The court equally held that a security report prepared by the SSS and forwarded to some state governors, indicting the Peace Corps as an unregistered body and a security threat, was unlawful, illegal and unwarranted