Inspector General of Police Usman Baba has filed a motion before the Abuja Division of the Federal High Court to challenge the “contempt proceedings and committal order” against him.

Police spokesman Olumuyiwa Adejobi disclosed this in a statement on Friday.

The court, on Tuesday, sentenced Mr Baba to three months in prison for disobeying a court order.

According to the police statement, the inspector general filed the motion to seek an order to set aside the contempt proceedings and committal order.

The statement said the grounds for the motion was that Mr Baba had not been appointed as the inspector general of police when the case was instituted.

Mr Baba also affirmed that the contempt proceedings were served by substituted means in November 2018 and January 2019, respectively, on the then inspector general of police and not on him as the incumbent.

He said official steps were taken before he assumed office by his predecessors to comply with the reinstatement order of the plaintiff, Mr Patrick Okoli.

“This was evidenced by an official letter addressed to the Police Service Commission, on the approval of the then IG, as far back as 2015, before the court order of November 29, 2022,” said the police statement. “The then IG requested the commission to issue a reinstatement letter to the plaintiff, and effect his promotion, in line with the order of the court in the exercise of its statutory authority. The grounds for the contempt proceedings ought not to have existed.”

In a ruling that Justice M.O. Olajuwon delivered, the court held that the police chief should be jailed for three months.

“If at the end of the three months, the contemnor remains recalcitrant and still refuses to purge his contempt, he shall be committed for another period and until he purges his contempt,” the court held.

Mr Baba’s committal followed a suit by a police officer, Mr Okoli, who was unlawfully and compulsorily retired from the Nigeria Police Force.

(NAN)