The Nigerian Senate has asked the Federal High Court, Abuja, to dismiss a suit alleging that the Ethiopian government lacks budgetary allocation to cater for the feeding and welfare of detained Nigerians.
The Chief Legislative Officer, National Assembly, Directorate of Legal Services, Usman Abdulhameed, filed a counter affidavit seeking the dismissal of a suit, marked FHC/ABJ/CS/303/2024 and filed by a Lagos-based businessman, Mmaduagwu Sunday, and two others, against Nigeria in Diaspora Commission (NIDCOM), Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Senate, the House of Representatives and others.
Nairametrics previously reported that the applicant stated he sued on behalf of the Nigerians allegedly imprisoned and detained in Kaliti, Ethiopian prison.
The applicant had said the Nigerian inmates were informed by Ethiopian prison officials that their government had asked the Nigerian embassy to come and take them back to Nigeria as “they have no budget to feed them.”
But in Abdulhameed’s counter affidavit dated May 9, 2024, and seen by Nairametrics, he urged the court to hold that the claims of the applicant are false.
According to him, the Senate has already probed the alleged incarceration and maltreatment of 250 Nigerians in Ethiopia but discovered the claims to be false.
He urged the court to dismiss the suit
The matter was fixed for hearing today but the court did not sit.
The case was subsequently adjourned to May 20 for a hearing.