Mohammed Nasir, Gusau
Kabiru Shobanke, a young businessman, resident in Gusau, Zamfara State, is the younger brother of the Oba Yoruba of Zamfara, Alhaji AbdulRasaq Shobanke. But the two brothers are today in court over allegations raging from alleged assassination attempt, fraud and alleged illegal restrictions on the younger’s Shobanke’s account.
The older Shobanke was the first person to drag the younger brother to the Upper Sharia Court. The younger brother too, in turn dragged the older brother to Zamfara State High Court.
It all started in January this year. The younger Shobanke could not access his account at the Gusau branch of the Guaranty Trust Bank (GTB), with his ATM. He went into the banking hall to make a formal complaint. He was confronted with a purported police report and another purported court order. The bank, he noted, claimed it placed restriction on the account based on the court order.
But perusing through the purported court order and the police report, there appeared to be nothing in both the court order and the police report that supported the action of the bank.
He decided to petition the bank, the police and other relevant agencies. One week after the petition, the Tudun Wada Police Division invited him over complaint from his older brother, Oba Yoruba, alleging that the younger Shobanke threatened to kidnap him. Without prior interview, the younger Shobanke was arraigned at Upper Sharia Court.
But the trial judge asked the police to go do proper investigation. This was in January. Daily Sun gathered that within the same period, the Police Commissioner, Alhaji Zannah Mohammed Ibrahim, also ordered a thorough investigation into the younger Shobanke’s petition.
However, while he was waiting for the outcome of his petition, by afternoon in February, “I was invited by the police. I thought it was for an interview following my attention.
“But I was wrong. I was clamped into detention and asked to be remanded in prison custody on the orders of the court. They said my offence was intimidation. But I was denied bail,” the younger Shobanke said.
He added: “Although, I was asked to be remanded for six days, I was lucky to be granted bail the next day.” The matter, however, took a new twist recently, following younger Shobanke’s decision to approach the court, to among other things clear his name and seek other damages, from his bankers and the older brother.
The suit no ZMS/G8/20/2019 in the Zamfara State High Court, is between Kabir Abiodun Shobanke (the plaintiff) and Abdulrazak Shobanke, Abdulfatai Shobanke, Abdullateef Shobanke, Alhaji Chief AA Shobanke, GT Bank, CSP Abdullahi Munta DPO Central Police Station, Gusau and the State Police Commissioner as (the first to seventh defendants respectively).
The plaintiff is seeking eight prayers from the court, including a declaration that the information presented by the first and second Defendants to the police and Chief Magistrate Court 1 on December 31, 2018 and January 2, 2019, were false criminal allegations and defamatory against the plaintiff and thus actionable.
That the restriction placed on the plaintiff’s account by the fifth defendant is illegal and should be lifted immediately and further declaration that the procedure of investigation adopted by the sixth and seventh defendants in obtaining court orders to place a restriction on the plaintiff bank account domiciled with the fifth defendant was illegal and ultra-vires the sixth and seventh defendants.
The plaintiff is also seeking a declaration that the publication by the third defendant on his Facebook page on February 22 constitutes disparaging statements against the plaintiff and as such, is actionable. He is also seeking another declaration that the prosecution of the plaintiff by the sixth and seventh defendants and their agents in his absence wherein court orders were obtained against the plaintiff was illegal.
To this end, he is also seeking an order compelling the first, second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh defendants to write a letter of apology individually to the plaintiff retrieving the defamatory words against the plaintiff and a further order compelling the first, second, third, fifth, sixth and seventh defendants to jointly or severally pay the plaintiff the sum of two million Naira as general damages.
Daily Sun gathered that before seeking legal redress the younger Shobanke had written a petition to the State Police Commissioner. He sought for protection and redress against the listed persons and their agents for “willfully and unlawfully placing restrictions on his account domiciled at the GT bank, Gusau branch thereby subjecting him and his family including a two-year-old daughter to untold hardship.”
The case comes up in September 3, 2019.