FACTS OF THE CASE The Applicants are Nigerian Citizens, members of one family and reside in Imo State, Nigeria. The 1st Applicant is the head of the family of all the Applicants. The 2nd – 21st Applicants are the wives, children, in-laws and grandchildren of the 1st Applicant respectively. The 1st Respondent is a Member State of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) and a signatory to its Treaties, Protocols, Directives and Regulations as well as the Universal Declaration on Human Rights, African Charter on Human and Peoples Rights, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. The 2nd Respondent is a component State of the 1st Respondent. The Applicants’ filed this action against the Respondents for the violation of their right to dignity, right to property, right to fair hearing and effective investigation. The Applicant’s aver that the Respondent through its agents arbitrarily demolished its 15 bedroom flats with 2 sitting rooms, 6 bedroom flats with a sitting room and a 7 bedroom flats with a sitting room. That the demolition was carried out without fair trial or in furtherance of a Court order. That on the 19th of December 2012, agents of the 2nd Respondent came into the 1st Applicant’s compound with 5 Toyota Hilux trucks filled with men armed with various types of guns who were ushered in by 2 persons that pointed out the 1st Applicants son as a suspect in a kidnap case being handled by the 2nd Respondent’s security network. They handcuffed the 1st Applicants son and asked him to take them to his room where they brought out all of his belongings and burnt them right in front of the 1st Applicants house, after which he was bundled and taken away. The Applicants have up to the time of filing this suit not been allowed to see him and the alleged suspect has still not been charged to any court for trial. That on the 12th of April, 2014 in the morning, agents of the Respondents’ went to the 1st Applicants house again, led by the same persons who previously accompanied them with a Hilux and a bulldozer, and demolished the 1st Applicants 3 units of detached bungalows, one 6 bedroom flat with a sitting room, one 7 bedroom flat with a sitting room and one 15 bedroom flat with two sitting rooms of which all their household items, furniture, electronics, clothing, certificates, landed documents, receipts, farm tools, traditional chieftaincy beads and Regalia, one complete small scale palm oil press plant, and cash crops were all destroyed. 3