A former staff member of Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA), Rasheed Ezekhagbe, has sued the Academy in court over an alleged illegal eviction from his official residence in Kaduna.
Gatekeepers News reports that Ezekhagbe, who served as a lawyer in the NDA’s legal department before retiring in 2021 at the statutory age of 65, said he was forcefully removed from his home despite an existing court injunction restraining the NDA from evicting him.
Speaking to journalists after a court session, he explained that soldiers invaded his residence at midnight, moved out all his belongings, and transported them to the NDA premises.
Ezekhagbe said, “The motion for contempt came up today (October 8), but the defendants, they filed a counter-motion yesterday evening (October 7) after closing, where my lawyer was served in court this morning (October 8). So we are going to move that motion, and then they will move that motion, and then we will take another date for the ruling on those motions”.
Although NDA’s counsel, Al-Ameen Abubakar, declined to comment on the case, citing lack of authorization from his clients, the presiding judge, Justice M. M. Ladan of Kaduna High Court 4, adjourned the matter to December 11, 2025, for further hearing.
Narrating his ordeal, Ezekhagbe said his troubles began after he purchased his official residence under the monetization policy introduced by former President Olusegun Obasanjo’s administration.
He recounted, “While I was in the service of the Nigerian Defence Academy (NDA) I had a government quarter and by the monetizing policy of the former President Olusegun Obasanjo administration they decided to sell all the government houses and that’s number nine Lokoja close, Barnawa where I got an offer which I paid for in stages of two weeks, after the offer you’re supposed to pay 10% of the offer as an acceptance fee and then you pay the other in two other installments which I did but by the time I retired on the 1st of March 2021 and by June 2022 the Nigerian Defence Academy wrote a vacation order to me that I should vacate the premises.”
Ezekhagbe said he approached the court and obtained an injunction stopping the eviction until the final determination of the suit. However, in June 2025, soldiers allegedly stormed his house at about 12:30 a.m., packed his belongings, and relocated him to the NDA old site against his will.
He narrated, “But in the middle of the night, around 12.30 a.m. of 6th of June, I was already asleep, and I heard, banging on my door and all that. I opened a duplex. I peeped through the window and saw soldiers in my compound. So I came downstairs, and they said they are from NDA. They have come to show me my new accommodation. I told them, I’m no longer your staff, and you can’t show me a new accommodation. In any case, this is my house.”
“They said, well, that’s the order they have. In order to avoid any, because they could shoot the door open and all that, l opened the door for them. They had come with a truck. They packed everything in my house, put them in the truck. Those that couldn’t go into the truck, they put them in the two garages I had, because I had built two extra garages there. They put them there and took me to NDA old site, and gave me one room.”
“So I came out, drove my car back to town, looked for an accommodation, and then I went and packed my things there. So we now had to, because since there is an existing order that they shouldn’t do what they have done, we now filed counter proceedings against the NDA and the commandant. And that procedure is supposed to have come up, is supposed to, is to come up today. In a nutshell, that’s what happened.”
The former NDA staff described the incident as traumatic, lamenting that his rights were violated despite a standing court order.
He said, “You can imagine sleeping peacefully and armed soldiers come in the middle of the night to throw you out.”
The case continues on December 11, 2025, as the court prepares to hear motions from both parties.
