Bash Ali throws N1 billion lawsuit at Solomon Dalung over alleged assault
Famous Nigerian boxer Bash Ali has dragged sports minister Solomon Dalung to court for “beating me up”.
The World Boxing Federation cruiser-weight champion is seeking N1bn damages from Dalung for injuries he reportedly suffered when Dalung’s aides allegedly attacked him in Abuja on February 13.
Ali said about the alleged assault:
“I was unconscious for about an hour until the ministry sent for paramedics who then carried me in a stretcher to the ministry’s staff clinic where I was given first aid treatment and when they saw that I was in extreme pains, I was immediately transferred to the Emergency Ward of the National Hospital where I stayed for about eight hours before I was rushed to the Trauma Department at National Hospital where I spent two days.”
The boxer has filed a civil suit against the sports minister, and four other respondents, at an Abuja High Court. He said his lawyer would receive N8 million in legal fees.
Dalung; his aides Nansel Nimyel, Charles Boga, and another identified as Mr. Joseph; and the Inspector-General of Police Ibrahim Idris were joined in the suit.
Ali alleged Nimyel started the assault on him, while Boga and Joseph beat him with gun butts.
In the motion filed by lawyer B. O Nafagha, Ali is seeking “an order of the court declaring the assault, beating and treatment of the applicant by the respondents on February 13, 2017 as unlawful, illegal, unconstitutional and a breach of his fundamental human rights.”
Ali wants an order of the court “compelling the respondents to pay to the applicant the sum of N1bn only as compensatory damages and public apology in two national newspapers for the breach of his fundamental human rights to his dignity as a person on 13th of February, 2017.
“An order of the court compelling the respondents to pay to the applicant the sum of N8m only as cost of litigation as a result of the assault, beating and treatment meted on the applicant.”
Ali, who wants to become the the oldest boxing champion in the world, has been at loggerheads with Dalung for a while.
Last year, Ali in a letter to President Muhammadu Buhari, accused the minister and aides of “demanding through a member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), David West, for a $100m bribe from the $750 million Pay Per View television profits from the Guinness World Record Boxing Championship Fight otherwise this historic event would not see the light of the day in Nigeria.”