Teenager spends days in detention over mother’s debt, drags EFCC to court
A 300-level Nursing Science student of Babcock University, Ilishan-Remo, Ogun State, Oluwateniola Omidiji who was arrested by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, over alleged debt has missed her school exams.
The 19-year old was arrested by the anti-graft agency operatives over an alleged debt owed to a business partner by her mother, Mrs Omoniyi Omidiji.
She was picked up from the school premises by the Lagos zone of EFCC operatives on April 26, 2024 over a business transaction carried out by her widowed mother in 2020.
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.
Effort to speak with the head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Dele Oyewale failed and no date has been fixed for further hearing of the matter yet.
