Sexual Harassment: Uche Nnaji wins CMB’s Mbagwu in court

Uche Nnaji and wife

After many months of messy fight, a Lagos High Court sitting at Ikeja has finally delivered a landmark judgment on Wednesday, May 7, 2014 in a fundamental rights action instituted by Mr. Uche Nnaji (designer and owner of Ouch Fashion and Lifestyle) and his wife, Onyinye Nnaji against the trio of Inspector-General of Police, Commissioner of Police, Lagos State and Mr. Kelechukwu Mbagwu, Managing Director of CMB Building Maintenance and Investment Company Limited, over the breach of their fundamental rights. 
SHOWBIZPLUSng gathered from a story written by Yes International Magazine that the embattled couple had sought to restrain the respondents from further harassment and intimidation, as well as compensation for the consummated breaches of their right to liberty.
As would be recalled, there was this frenzy all over the social media throughout mid-December of 2013 and early January of 2014 with news of arrest and detention of the Ouch boss by men of the State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) allegedly at the behest of Mr. Kelechuckwu Mbagwu. From the court papers filed by Mr. Fidel Albert of the firm of Aes Triplex LP, on behalf of the Nnajis, it was alleged that Mr. Kelechukwu Mbagwu had instigated the Lagos State Commissioner of Police  to arrest and detain the Ouch boss for the simple reason that Onyinye Nnaji, then a staff of Mr. Mbagwu’s company, allegedly rebuffed his sexual demands, and later resigned on account of this. According to Mr. Nnaji’s affidavit filed in court, this incident is said to have occurred barely 3 weeks after Onyinye’s wedding to Uche. Mbagwu was said to have been incensed by Onyinye’s resignation. Thus, according to the court documents, began a series of sustained pressure by Mbagwu to have Onyinye back in the company, as she was known to be a star employee who had brought in millions of naira in sales. After several phone calls and incessant demands for meetings in private locations with Onyinye, she was alleged to have finally sent a text message to Mr. Mbagwu, begging him to leave her and her family alone. Based on the text, Mr. Mbagwu approached the Commissioner of Police, Lagos State, with a petition of threat to life, by the Nnajis. The COP dispatched his officers to  arrest Uche Nnaji . Upon receiving a telephone call from the officers inviting him to the station, Uche Nnaji, on December 6, 2013, willingly went to the SIB office in Ikeja to find out what the matter was only to be arrested and detained till the next day, December 17, 2013. Mr. Nnaji and his wife applied to the High Court of Lagos State to protect their fundamental rights, and after the Police had been served with all the processes in court and had been advised by Mr. Fidel Albert, counsel to the Nnajis, through a letter dated January 27, 2014 that the matter was subjudice and would be coming up before Ogunsaya J., for hearing on January 31, 2014. Eventually, they charged Mrs. Nnaji before a magistrate court in Ikeja, on a charge of threat to life. It took an order of the High Court of Lagos State to temporarily restrain the Police. In its judgment, the High Court upbraided the Police for their conduct in the whole matter. The court further held that even if the Police are conferred with powers to arrest and detain suspects, such powers are not absolute and must be exercised within the confines of Section 35 of the Constitution. The Police were restrained from further harassing the couple and directed to forthwith withdraw the charge pending against Mrs. Nnaji at the Magistrate’s Court. Mbagwu, meanwhile, has since appealed the judgement.