Accordingly, since this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain disputes between
individuals on alleged cases of human rights violation, the preliminary objection
of the 2nd Defendant on this Count is upheld. The Court therefore holds that the
2nd and the 3rd Defendants, not being State parties to the ECOWAS Treaty, are not
proper parties in this suit. The names of the 2nd and the 3rd Defendants are hereby
struck out from the suit.
With regard to the 1st Defendant, his ground of preliminary objection are hereby
dismissed and the Court holds that the case against her is admissible. The Court
will now proceed to consider the case against the 1st Defendant on the merits.
1. THE SUBSTANTIVE CASE
1.1 The Plaintiff’s case. For the purpose of clarity and emphasis, we shall
restate the facts and circumstances leading to this application, the claim
of the Applicants and the evidence in support.
The 1st Applicant described as a registered Non –Governmental
Organization (NGO) in Nigeria, brought this Application in a
representative capacity as representatives of eight deceased persons named
(therein) and the 2nd to 12th Applicants, against the 1st Defendant and the two
others whose names have been struck out. Their right are enshrined in
Articles 3,5,7 and 8 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Articles
5,6 and 7 of the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights.
The facts of the case as alleged by the Applicants is that on Friday 20th
September, 2013 at about 2am, the armed men comprising officers and men
of the Nigerian Armed Forces and the Department of State Security
Services (DSS), agents of the 1st Defendants, raided an uncompleted
building at Aderemi Adesoji Crescent Apo, Zone E, on the alleged
suspicion that there are weapons buried in the vicinity by members of the
BOKO HARAM terrorist group and that some
of the terrorist are
occupying the building .
Owing to the alleged suspicion, the security agents of the 1st Defendant, the
Federal Republic of Nigeria and a Member State of the Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS), went into the building.
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