Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, on Monday, ordered the Nigerian Immigration Services to immediately release the seized international passport of former Rivers State Governor, Dr Peter Odili.
The two-term governor of River State filed before the court, a fundamental right suit, challenging the seizure of his international travelling documents by Immigration officials.
Justice Ekwo, in his judgement, held that there was no legal justification for the action the NIS took against the former governor.
In the suit dated August 25 and filed on the 26, the former governor had claimed that his international passport with numbers B50031305 was seized from him on June 20, 2021, when he landed at the airport from the United Kingdom, where he had gone for his routine medical checkup by operatives of the Immigration Service and had since been withheld.
Arguing his application, Dr Odili maintained that he is a law-abiding senior citizen of Nigeria that did not do anything to warrant the seizure of his passport.
Consequently, he prayed the court to compel the Respondents to release the passport to him, as well as to issue an order of perpetual injunction stopping them from further harassing, embarrassing, intimidating or interfering with his fundamental right to freedom of movement.
However, in a counter-affidavit by the Immigration Service, It was revealed that Odili’s passport was seized because he is on the watch list of the EFCC.
The affidavit deposed to by one Okwe Ernest of the Legal Department of the Immigration Service averred that Odili was watchlisted at the request of the EFCC.
The Immigration Service claimed that the former governor was not entitled to the request presented before the court and that his suit should be dismissed for being premature.
The respondents further submitted that the action of Immigration was as a result of collaborations of all the federal government security agencies and that they were only carrying out their statutory functions.
The affidavit said that since the passport was seized, Odili has never for once demanded its release or cared to know why it was seized.
