Mr. Tonye Okio, a loyalist of a former Governor of Bayelsa State, Chief Timipre Sylva, has initiated a legal action at the Yenagoa High Court, challenging his continued detention by the state's Commissioner of Police at the instance of Governor Seriake Dickson.
The court has fixed hearing for November 6 in the suit marked KHC/24/2013.
Okio was whisked away from Abuja to Yenagoa by the police last week and has since been detained at the State Criminal Investigation Department.
His arrest and detention followed a complaint lodged at the office of the State Commissioner of Police by Dickson that Okio had defamed him by posting a publication on Facebook that "a governor in the South-South region was arrested abroad for money laundering."
Poised to regain his freedom, Okio through his lawyers, D.D. Fiderikumo and Co, had filed for the enforcement of his fundamental rights and therefore his subsequent release by the police.
Okio prayed the court to declare that his arrest and detention were contrary to Section 35 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
He asked the court to declare that his said arrest and detention on the basis of a publication on his Facebook account were "a brazen violation of his fundamental rights."
