Naidike wins at Privy Council

NIGERIAN Doctor Robert Naidike, who was thrown in jail for two months and separated from his two-and-a-half-year-old daughter Faith in 1995, won his constitutional motion in the Privy Council yesterday which ordered that he be paid damages for unlawful imprisonment. The motion is to be remitted to the TT High Court for the assessment of damages. The British Law Lords also ordered that Naidike be paid half of his costs in the TT High Court and Court of Appeal and before the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council. Newsday broke the good news to Naidike at his Port-of-Spain office yesterday afternoon. The beaming Nigerian medic said, “I feel great, elated. I want to give God thanks and praise. It was divine intervention, because I felt I would have won in the Privy Council.”

Naidike, 41, continued, “it was a long, long struggle. This judgment will go a long way to help people who are not as fortunate as me to pursue this matter.” Naidike, who became an intern at the San Fernando General Hospital in 1991, was served with a deportation order by the Chief Immigration Officer in 1995. When he did not comply with the request to leave the country, Naidike was arrested, beaten and thrown in the Port-of-Spain State Prison. He spent time in the Port-of-Spain General Hospital nursing his injuries. He was released from hospital on December 12, 1995, and taken before the Port-of-Spain Magistrates’ Court charged with assaulting a policeman. He was then kept in prison before he was released on February 5, 1996, following an order of High Court Judge Margot Warner.

After his release, Naidike had been unable to practice his profession. How did he live? “I got handouts from friends and from the community. But after four years, some of these people got tired and they fell by the wayside. The churches came to my rescue and that of my little daughter. I had to drive taxi to support me and my daughter. That was dangerous. I was even attacked by three bandits while driving my taxi in St Joseph in 1999.” Life returned to some normalcy for Naidike on December 20, 2002, when he was reinstated by the Ministry of Health. He is now the District Medical Officer for Victoria, and he also operates “The Doctors’ Clinic Net International” on Pembroke Street, opposite  the city jail where Naidike jokingly referred to as home at one time.

On April 23, 2003, he was granted residence status consequent to his second marriage to a Trinidad and Tobago national. Naidike said he had lost a lot when the attempt was made to deport him. He said his medical colleagues had bypassed him. “I lost my first wife. I can’t go back to Nigeria to see my mother who taught me. My father died when I was 12. I still love Trinidad despite the persecution. I married a daughter (Leslie) of the soil, just to show you that I love your country.” Naidike said his lawyers pursued this matter pro bono. “They never received a cent,” the Nigerian doctor added. Naidike’s troubles began when the Ministry of National Security refused to renew his work permit in 1995. On June 7, 1995, he was told by a staff nurse at the Port-of-Spain General Hospital to stop work. A request for another work permit was denied and he went to the Immigration Department where he was told to make arrangements to leave the country.

On November 28, 1995, Naidike was confronted by two policemen in his car in Port-of-Spain. The officers claimed they were assaulted by the Nigerian. But yesterday, Naidike said he was attacked from behind and left unconscious for four hours. When he awoke he was in a cell at the CID. He was charged, but these charges as well as cross-charges are still pending in court. Naidike challenged the deportation order by way of judicial review proceedings. He also filed a constitutional motion seeking damages for his arrest and detention in 1995. On April 1, 1999, Justice Wendell Kangaloo rejected Naidike’s work permit claim, but ruled in his favour on the issue of wrongful deprivation of liberty.

The Court of Appeal comprising Chief Justice Sat Sharma and Justices Rolston Nelson and Anthony Lucky dismissed Naidike’s appeal against the rejection of the work permit claim. Sharma and Lucky held that Naidike’s detention was lawful throughout Nelson dissented. Yesterday, the Privy Council comprising Lords Hope, Scott, Walker, Brown and Baroness Hale, ruled that Naidike’s arrest and detention was unlawful and that he be paid damages. Peter Knox appeared for Naidike, while James Guthrie QC represented the Attorney General.