An Oyo State High Court in Ibadan, on Friday, dismissed a case of assault filed against ex-Customs officer, Audu Kawu and his son, DSP Ibrahim Kawu, a police officer.
Mr Olusegun Otolorin had instituted a suit of assault against the defendants for allegedly brutalising and inflicted injury on him with broken bottles over a land dispute.
The claimant, through his Counsel, Mrs Bolaji Babadiya, had urged the court to declare the alleged assault as unlawful and an infringement on his fundamental rights.
The counsel had informed the court that the incident happened on March 26, 2014 at Kilometer 247 on Iwo Road، Ojoo area of Ibadan, Oyo State, and urged it to award her client N50 million as general damages.
Delivering judgment, Justice Ganiyu Sunmonu dismissed the suit, saying the claimant failed to discharge the burden of proof to warrant granting of his reliefs.
Sunmonu said that where the testimonies of the claimant’s witness were contradictory, it could not be believed, and no probative value could be attached to it.
The judge said that the claimant acted on hearsay and his counsel could not bother to call the wife, who called the claimant that the defendants were in front of his house threatening to attack him if he dared to return home.
“The claimant has failed to prove that the defendants brutalised him on March 26, 2014.
“The lone issue formulated by the claimant fail in it entirety and same is dismissed,”the judge said.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the claimant called four witnesses to prove his suit, while the defendants represented by Mr Richard Ogunwole SAN, called three witnesses.
Speaking to NAN after the judgment was delivered, Otolorin said he was not satisfied with the verdict and would appeal.
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