Court orders Police to pay Ogun missing cop’s family N20m

The National Industrial Court sitting in Ibadan has ordered the police to pay N20m to the family of a constable, Emmanuel Gene, who went missing two years ago.

Gene was attached to the Ijebu-Igbo division of the Ogun State Police Command and was declared missing two years ago.

It was gathered that Gene was reportedly kidnapped by hoodlums during an operation in Aba Tuntun in December 2020.

Gene, whose wife was pregnant at the time, was yet to be found. The family therefore approached the court.

In a petition dated September 21, 2021, the family members through their counsel, Kehinde Bamiwola, called on police authorities to intervene and find the missing cop, dead or alive.

The family asked the Commissioner of Police, the then Area Commander of Ijebu-Ode, Abiodun Onuoha and the DPO at the time, SP Kazeem Solatan, to provide the missing cop.

In the suit, the claimants told the court that Solatan “took the missing Police Constable Emmanuel Gene for a land-grabbing operation at Aba-Tuntun, Ijebu-Igbo.”

They also accused the police of negligence.

In their prayers, the claimants asked that their son be found by the police with the sum of N20million paid to the family.

In his judgment on Thursday, Justice Opeloye Ogunbowale, granted the reliefs sought by the plaintiffs, saying he “found the police liable for negligence under the doctrine of vicarious liability and that the police exposed PC Emmanuel Gene to extreme danger.”

The court therefore ordered the police to “rescue and produce PC Emmanuel Gene dead or alive” and that “the sum of N20m should be paid to the family with the cost of litigation, N300,000, within 30 days of the delivery of this judgment.”