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Alleged Defamation: Court Bars IGP, Others From Arresting ACADIP Leader, Yusuf Adepoju

Court has barred IGP and others from arresting ACADIP leader, Yusuf Adepoju.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the High Court of Osun State has barred the Inspector-General of Police and other relevant police authorities from arresting the leader of the Academy of Islamic Propagation (ACADIP), an Islamic institute that engages in comparative religious studies, Yusuf Adepoju, and another cleric, Mudathir Kewudirorun.

A certified true copy of the interim order obtained by PREMIUM TIMES on Friday is dated November 22, 2021.

The judge, A.O. Oyebiyi, issued the order following an application filed by the counsel for the clerics, AbdulFatai AbdulSalam.

“An order of Interim Injunction is hereby made restraining the 1st to the 5th respondents and indeed all officers under them or acting for them from arresting, harassing and detaining the applicants or invading the’ residences of the applicants or any place where the applicants may be even outside their respective residences pending the hearing and determination of the motion on notice which is hereby fixed for hearing on the 13/12/2021,” the certified true copy of the enrolled order of the court reads in part.

The respondents restrained by the court from arresting the applicants include the Inspector-General of Police, the deputy inspector General of police, and the Commissioner of Police in charge of the Special Fraud Unit, Abuja.

The rest are the Deputy Commissioner of Police in charge of Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID), a deputy commissioner of police, Thair Usman, a commissioner of police, of the Force Criminal Investigation Unit, and another unnamed commissioner of police.

Backstory
Mr Adepoju had alleged that operatives of the Nigerian police had in gestapo-like manner “swooped” on his home in Ilobu, the headquarters of Irepodun Local Government Area of Osun State at about 3a.m. on November 16 to arrest him.

According to the cleric, though he was not at home, his family members were subjected to tortuous experience in the dead of the night.

In an earlier statement issued on the matter, one of the cleric’s lawyers, Kabir Akingbolu, a principal partner at Salawu, Akingbolu & Company, had narrated the ordeal of Mr Adepoju, noting that there was no basis for such an alleged threatening approach by the police.

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The statement had read in part, “Like a thief in the night, on Tuesday, November 16, 2021, the house of this Islamic scholar was besieged by people suspected to be either from The Nigerian Police or DSS around 3am.

“Though Adepoju was lucky not to be around when the ‘visitors’ came, he obviously got the message in the hard way through the emotional torture inflicted on members of his family.

“Few hours later, precisely around 5p.m in the evening, when Mallam Yusuf thought the siege was over, the visitors returned, this time in a military commando manner, armed with a letter of invitation from the Office of the Commissioner of Police, Police Special Fraud Unit (FCIID), Abuja.

“In the letter of invitation, it was stated that the office was investigating alleged case of Defamation of Character/Character Assassination, where Mallam Yusuf was allegedly featured.”

The statement also quoted the letter dated November 16, 2021 and signed by a deputy commissioner of police, Tahir Usman, inviting the cleric to the Special Fraud Unit, Force Criminal Investigation Department, Area 10, Garki, Abuja on November 24, 2021 at 11 a.m. “for clarification on the alleged case.”

But Mr Adepoju said he was unaware of any case of defamation involving him and anyone, and wondered what could have informed the “hide and seek” being played by the police to arrest him when he had never been invited for any of such cases before now.”

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