Court Awards N15m Against Police Commissioner for Breach of Right to Peaceful Assembly
A High Court sitting in Kaduna has awarded ₦15 million in damages against the Commissioner of Police, Kaduna State, for violating the fundamental rights of members of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) to peaceful assembly.
Delivering judgment on Wednesday, Justice Murtala Zubairu also issued a perpetual injunction restraining the Commissioner of Police, his officers, and agents from disrupting or interfering with lawful political meetings and rallies in the state.
The court found that the police acted unlawfully when they disrupted two political meetings involving former Kaduna State Governor, Mallam Nasir El‑Rufai, alongside chieftains of the ADC and SDP, held on 30 August and 4 September 2025.
Evidence before the court showed that the first meeting was broken up by thugs in the presence of police officers, while the second was halted by the police on the strength of an ex parte order obtained from the court.
The police had earlier filed a suit, marked KDH/KAD/NPD/1315/2025, seeking to suspend all political meetings in Kaduna State pending investigations into alleged threats of violence.
Justice Zubairu, however, dismissed the suit as incompetent and politically motivated, describing it as an abuse of court process.
The judge held that the police acted in bad faith and exceeded their statutory powers under the Police Act 2020. He emphasised that the role of the police is to provide security for lawful assemblies, not to prohibit them.
Quoting from his judgment, Justice Zubairu stated: “The notion that the police can indefinitely suspend the fundamental rights of association and assembly of every political party in a state is an overreach and constitutes an abuse of statutory powers. The duty of the police is to provide security for peaceful assemblies, not to ban them pre‑emptively based on vague fears or speculative intelligence.”
The court further declared that the ex parte injunction obtained by the police on 4 September 2025 violated Section 40 of the 1999 Constitution (as amended), which guarantees the right to peaceful assembly and association. The order was accordingly discharged for procedural irregularities and lack of merit.
Relying on appellate precedents such as Inspector‑General of Police v. ANPP (2007) and APC v. Inspector‑General of Police (2014), the court reaffirmed that the police have no constitutional or statutory authority to prohibit peaceful assemblies.
Justice Zubairu also ruled that the police’s failure to investigate petitions submitted by the political parties regarding the 30 August 2025 attack amounted to a breach of statutory duty under Sections 4, 83, and 84 of the Police Act. He described this omission as a clear abdication of duty.
Consequently, the court awarded ₦15 million in damages against the police, broken down as ₦5 million for the arbitrary suspension of political meetings, ₦5 million for obtaining a wrongful injunction, and ₦5 million for failure to investigate the reported attack. The Commissioner of Police was further directed to investigate the August 30 violence and submit a report to the Attorney‑General of Kaduna State within 60 days.
In his closing remarks, Justice Zubairu warned that selective enforcement or suppression of opposition activity by law enforcement agencies erodes public trust and undermines democracy. He stressed that the Constitution protects not only the right to vote but also the right to assemble, organise, and associate freely, describing these rights as the lifeblood of democracy.
