BENJAMIN JUNIOR DURU V. THE GOVERNOR OF IMO STATE & ORS

ITA GEORGE MBABA, J.C.A. (Delivering the Leading Judgment): This appeal is against the judgment of the High Court of Imo State, in Suit No. HOW/276/2000, delivered by Hon. Justice Chioma Nwosu Iheme, (now Justice of the Court of Appeal) on 9/5/2005, wherein the trial Court dismissed the case of the Plaintiff (now Appellant).

A brief facts of the case at the trial Court showed that, between 24th and 25th September, 1996, there was a wide spread civil disturbances and commotion in Owerri, Capital of Imo State, following the murder and discovery of the headless body of a child, Ikechukwu Okonkwo in a hotel in Owerri, known as Otokoto Hotel. The aggrieved protesters and mobsters destroyed or burnt houses, particularly, those the protesters believed belonged to nouveau riche those who acquire sudden riches and spend recklessly, but without feasible way of explaining their sudden wealth whom the protesters described as 419 operators. The disturbances was so wide spread that it left so much d…