[News] Court dismisses Bulkachuwa’s lawsuit seeking to bar ICPC and DSS from probing him

A lawsuit filed by Senator Adamu Bulkachuwa, seeking to stop the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Commission (ICPC) and the Department of State Services (DSS) from probing him over the comment he made during the valedictory session of the 9th National Assembly, has been struck out by Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

 

Recall that Senator Bulkachuwa had said that he made his wife, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, “extend help” to him and his colleagues during her time as President of the Court of Appeal between April 2014 and March 2020. The comment triggered condemnations from Nigerians with calls for his probe.

 

Justice Ekwo who presided over the lawsuit, struck it out on grounds of lacking merit. He stated that the lawmaker ought to understand the implications of the statement that he made on the floor of the Senate.

 

Ekwo stated that the legislative immunity that Bulkachuwa claims in this case does not avail him. He added that it is only when a law enforcement agency breaches the fundamental rights of a citizen in the process of carrying out their statutory function, that a cause of action could be said to have arisen.