People of Owerri have dragged the Imo State Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha before a High Court sitting in Owerri, capital of the state for forceful relocation and demolition of their ancestral market called Ekeukwu Owerre.
The Owerri indigenes, in a suit numbered HOW/695/2017 filed on September 13, 2017 challenged the illegal removal of the market and its subsequent demolition of the said market despite the pending suit and restraining order by the court.
They requested the court to order Okorocha to pay them the sum of N100b as exemplary damages for the said unlawful and unconstitutional acts.
Okorocha, the Speaker of the state House of Assembly, Dr Acho Ihim and the state Attorney- General were the three defendants in the suit filed by Chief T.O.S Oparaugo and 11 others.
However, Chief U.N. Udochukwu, SAN who filed the suit behalf of the plaintiff leads a team of lawyers including two Senior Advocates namely, K.C.O. Njemanze and N.A. Nnawuchi.
In the originating summons, the plaintiff prayed the court to declare that their forcible removal from the Ekeukwu market situated in Owerri and demolition of the said market despite the subsistence of a pending suit and a restraining court order, without any enabling judicial order constituted an act of state executive impunity and grave violation of the provision of Sections 6(1)(2)(3): 36(1), 180(II) 237(3) of the 1999 Constitution on the part of the Imo state Government.
The people also asked the court to declare that by virtue of section 6(6)(a) and b,36(1) and 272 of the 1999 constitution, the court has the constitutional power vires to severe the said action of the state Government.
Meanwhile, the plaintiff had asked the court to hold that they were entitled to compensation to be determined by the court for injuries and damages caused to them by the state Government’s act of impunity and grave violation of the Constitution.
