By Kenneth Ikonne
Almost every history buff is now familiar with the story of the Duke of Wellington, the all – conquering British General who defeated Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte at the battle of Waterloo in 1815, and had the Emperor exiled to the remote island of Elba, ending the Napoleonic era, and French dominance in Europe!
Well, the triumphant Duke returned to his native England, and on a certain day in rural England, led his convoy of dignitaries and troops to attempt to pass through a private estate, as a short cut. At the gate of the estate, the mighty Duke, who had just routed and deposed one of history’s greatest military strategists and conquerors, was stopped and refused entry by a boy barely into his teens, on the ground that the estate was private property, and could therefore not be trespassed through. The Duke and his entourage simply turned back, and detoured through the public thoroughfare!
In that moment of edifying commonsense, the highly elated lad quipped one of history’s most memorable quotes to his astounded father: “I have done what Napoleon could not do – I have turned back the Duke of Wellington!”
The Duke’s retreat was glowing testaments to the primacy of private proprietary rights in English law – a right that cannot be curtailed, save in the gravest of circumstances! Nigerian property law, though largely codified, has inherited those solemn principles of English property law, and has even elevated the right to private property to the status of a fundamental right under section 44 of the Constitution. The same Constitution also went ahead to guarantee and protect the “privacy of citizens, their homes…”, in section 37.
It is therefore stark contumacy to attempt to rationalize the refusal of a mere Commissioner of Police to abide by the visitation protocols of a private estate, and to instead resort to intimidation and brute force as a means of gaining ingress. Being a private estate, section 37 of the Constitution grants its residents the fundamental right to privacy. The residents could therefore lawfully institute entry protocols, and lawfully refuse to let in even President Buhari.
The only way the Lagos State Police Commissioner could have lawfully broken into the estate, as he did, was by the production of a search warrant entitling him to search the estate, or a warrant of arrest denoting that he was in pursuit of a criminal hiding in the estate! None of this, as we now know, was the case; the police chief was on his way to a social event within the estate!
It is indeed regrettable that the police chief who should have seized the opportunity to demonstrate disarming humility by subjecting himself to the entry protocols collectively instituted by the residents and reposed in the estate guards for effectuation, chose instead to resort to impunity and brute force by arresting the hapless guards, and forcing himself in!
By so doing, he broke the law, and dishonoured his uniform!
Kenneth Ikonne, a lawyer and public analyst writes from Abuja.