Despite the Directorate of Public Prosecutions [DPP] absolving him of armed robbery charges and advising he should be released in 2015, a bricklayer spent five extra years caged at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre in Lagos State because the police prosecutor forgot to take the advice to court.

Idris Saula, 36, was arrested in 2014 when policemen attached to Ajiwe Police Station raided a construction site he was working on in the Sangotedo, Ajah area of the state.

After a few days in custody, he was transferred to the Ikeja office of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad, where he spent five months, The Punch Newspaper reports.

The victim was subsequently taken to a magistrates’ court and arraigned for armed robbery and was remanded in prison.

The DPP released the legal advice absolving Saula of all charges in 2015 but the police prosecutor did not take the advice to court, leaving the bricklayer in prison for another five years.

On April 30, 2020, he was miraculously released after an inmate, who was brought to Kirikiri on minor offence, contacted human rights lawyer, Femi Falana [SAN], over his case.

He would later allege that his inability to pay N50,000 to the policemen at the Ajiwe Police Station for bail was behind his predicament.

Narrating his ordeal in a Punch report, he said:

“When they opened the prison gate and told me to go, I could not understand what was happening to me. I felt giddy as fresh air blew on me. I have still not recovered.

“I was called for a bricklayer’s job at Sangotedo. We were working when we heard a noise of some thugs fighting. Shortly afterwards, the police came and raided the area. I was among the seven construction workers they arrested.

“When we got to the police station, they demanded N50,000 for our bail. Others paid and they were released. My phone had been taken and I did not know the number of any family member off hand.

“After spending three days in the station, I was taken to the SARS office in Ikeja. I spent five months and two weeks there. They did not even bother to find out the whereabouts of my family or anybody.”

Meanwhile, Falana, while thanking the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Lagos State, Mr Moyosore Onigbanjo (SAN), vowed to sue the Nigeria Police Force for Saula’s ordeal.

“We wrote a letter to the attorney-general to inform him about Saula’s unlawful detention. In the course of investigation, the DPP discovered that the legal advice written on the matter over five years ago was to the effect that he should be released from custody because there was no evidence that he was part of any armed robbery or other criminal gangs whatsoever,” The Punch quoted him as saying.

“The legal advice was sent to the police, but it was not forwarded to the magistrates’ court. Hence, a dysfunctional criminal legal system kept an innocent man in jail for six years.

“The legal advice was forwarded to the court and the magistrate ordered the production and release of the defendant. A court order was obtained and served on the Kirikiri Correctional Centre and he was released.

“We are going to sue the Nigeria Police Force. Of course, we are going to join the prosecutor, whose negligence kept the man in unlawful detention for years. More importantly, we are going to challenge the dysfunctional criminal justice system that sentences indigent people to prolonged detention without trial.”