Professor Zainab Duke Abiola and her maid, Rebecca Enechido, who allegedly assaulted Teju Moses, a Police Inspector, and her orderly, have been remanded in the Suleja Correctional Facility till October 5, 2022.
Abiola was arrested on Wednesday, September 2022, for causing grievous assault on Teju Moses.
The Chief Magistrate Court of FCT Zone 6 gave the remand order on Thursday.
This newspaper reported that The Inspector-General of Police, IGP Usman Alkali Baba, ordered the arrest of Prof. Abiola, a legal practitioner and human rights activist, after a video of a female mobile police officer bleeding from her forehead after she was allegedly assaulted by domestic workers of the professor, surfaced on social media on Tuesday.
Abiola is facing prosecution for offences of criminal conspiracy, causing criminal hurt without provocation.
The Police accused her of an attempt to commit culpable homicide and an intentional insult to cause a breach of trust.
The court ruled that the suspect be remanded in the Suleja Correctional Facility while the case was adjourned to October 5th for the next hearing.
The Police Inspector was assaulted due to her refusal to breach professional ethics by carrying out menial and domestic chores at her house.
The professor and her domestic staff, comprising the housemaid, one Rebecca Enechido and a male suspect currently at large, inflicted injuries on the hapless police officer.
Meanwhile, the professor denied assaulting the officer.
In a statement issued on her behalf by the Afro-European Lawyers League, she said: “The facts are: 1. That on the 20th of April 2022, the IGP approved the revalidation and deployment of police orderlies to our leader based on the fact that she is the Chief Legal Consultant to the Nigerian Police and has her office at the Force headquarters, Abuja.
“2. That the police consequently assigned a female police officer who was among the perpetrators of Violence against innocent Nigerian Citizens during the ENDSARS imbroglio.
“3. That consequent upon discovery of her orderly’s involvement in police brutality against Nigerians that Professor Zainab rejected the posting of a brutal officer and returned the said orderly back to Force Headquarters to her bosses and told her bye-bye on the 19th of September.
“4. That to our surprise, at about 10 p.m., the former Orderly returned with a vengeance banging on our gates with some dangerous weapons, including a gun, threatening to kill everybody in the compound and that the police Orderly beat up family members of the Professor’s household.
“5. That as can be seen in the video, a crowd soon gathered, and there was street brawling crowd fighting and loss of properties.
“6. That it is very strange that the IGP will forcefully, brutally and illegally violate the fundamental rights and liberties of a distinguished law-abiding citizen and proceed to forcefully take her pictures and maliciously publish same in the print and electronic media in this nascent democratic dispensation.”
