19-year-old student sues EFCC for detaining her over her mother’s debt

Oluwateniola Omidiji, a 300-level Nursing Science student of Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, has dragged the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC to court for allegedly detaining her.

He was reportedly arrested from the school premises by operatives of the Lagos zonal command on April 26, 2024 over a business transaction carried out by her widowed mother in 2020.

This action caused the 19-year-old girl to miss her school exams, as she spent days in its custody due to the anti-graft agency’s inability to locate her mother, Mrs Omoniyi Omidiji.

In a fundamental rights suit marked FHC/L/CS/759/224, filed at the Federal High Court, Lagos, Miss Omidiji alleged that she was taken hostage by EFCC operatives over a debt which one Mr. Charles Nwoko alleged that her mother owed him from a business deal.

Nwoko claimed that he invested the sum of N100,000,000 into Mrs. Omidiji’s business of which Oluwateniola is a partner sometime in 2020 after which Mrs Omidiji travelled abroad.

It was gathered that the EFCC in their investigation at the Corporate Affairs Commission, discovered four persons as directors in a company called Elisto Global Services Limited, which Mrs. Omidiji allegedly used to receive the money from the complainant, Mr. Nwoko.

Meanwhile, Oluwateniola, who has been in the EFCC facility, has cried out to the court, saying that she has spent 10 days while examination has been going on in her school.

From the court papers sighted, EFCC is said to have maintained that having been named by her mother as a director of Elisto, the 19-year-old Oluwateniola should answer for her mother’s presumed crime in the joint venture with Mr. Nwoko.

But Oluwateniola’s lawyer, Chijioke Emeka, SAN, is seeking enforcement of her fundamental human right, noting that Oluwateniola was a minor, being 16-year-old when her mother entered into a business partnership with the complainant.

The lawyer, in court documents filed, is seeking payment of N10,000,000 as damages to Oluwateniola, arguing that her fundamental rights to human dignity, personal liberty, fair hearing and freedom of movement have been breached.