A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and leading
human rights crusader, Femi Falana, has petitioned the Inspector General of
Police, the Police Service Commission (PSC) and the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) over the alleged scandalous use of police officers attached
to the Special Armed Robbery Squad (SARS) by a controversial prominent
government contractor, Emeka Offor, against his people of Oraifite in Ekwusigo
Local Government Area of Anambra State.
In a petition
written last week and signed by Sam Ogala, a lawyer in Mr. Falana’s law firm,
the human rights lawyer accused Mr. Emeka Offor of “using the police hierarchy
to commit monumental and scandalous human rights abuses against his own
kinsmen.” The letter was
addressed to Police Inspector General Mohammed D. Abubakar, NHRC Chairman
Anselm Odinkalu, and PSC Chairman Mike Okiro, a former Inspector General of
Police.
Mr. Falana’s law
firm stated that Mr. Offor’s latest gross abuse of his folks’ basic rights took
place last weekend when some officers and men of the Anambra State SARS
headquarters at Awkuzu in Oyi Local Government Area arrested Eugene Nworah, an
Onitsha-based businessman from Oraifite. Mr. Nworah’s arrest reportedly
followed his public complaint to the Oraifite people that Mr. Offor had
deliberately caused the Customs Service to seize his nine 40-foot containers with
goods worth N970 million on trumped up charges.
“As a result of
this seizure,” wrote Mr. Nworah in an online report, “I was crippled
financially through the machination of someone I confided in as a brother,
friend and townsman.”
According to the
petition against Mr. Offor, he had earlier caused SARS officers to arrest three
brothers named Ifeanyi, Chinedu and Tochukwu Igboanuzue, all businessmen in
Lagos, over a family disagreement following the death of their sister, Joy, a
devout Anglican Christian who died in controversial circumstances on December
5, 2013, and was buried in their hometown on March 21.
“Offor’s
interest in the matter is that these siblings dared to disagree with their
brother, Sunday Igboanuzue, who is Offor’s Man Friday.
“SARS personnel
not only arrested these brothers who were mourning the tragic loss of their
dear sister who died at an early age, but also went after a popular and
charismatic pastor, Agu Udor, from neighboring Ozubulu town whom they consulted
for spiritual succor, and even forced him under duress to admit that the three
brothers were in error in opposing their brother.”
All three men
were arrested in December and were held till March when the Anambra State High
Court in Nnewi ordered their release.
But soon after
they breathed the air of freedom, Mr. Offor caused the police to re-arrest
them, charging them with murder at the Ozubulu Magistrate Court, according to
the petition from Mr. Falana’s law firm.
The petition
also alleged that Mr. Offor had masterminded the SARS arrest and torture of
Comrade Bonny Okonkwo, an international businessman from Oraifite, who was
reportedly abducted in Lagos on July 17, 2013, and detained in Abuja till
August 23 when Chief Magistrate Dahiru of the Kubwa Court in the Federal
Capital Territory ordered his release.
Mr. Okonkwo’s
offence was the “publication of a so-called disrespectful article against Emeka
Offor in an online website of Oraifite people called Mbala Obodo.”
Mr. Falana’s law
firm accused Mr. Offor of instigating SARS officers in Nnewi to arrest one
Ifeanyi Nwokolo, an Nnewi-based businessman, and his cousin, Muozube, also
based in Nnewi, who were feuding over the ownership of a piece of land near
Offor’s country home at Oraifite.
The petition
stated that Mr. Offor, “a supposed knight of the Anglican Church who acquired a
third wife only last January 3 at a public show in his village, caused SARS men
to arrest in January four members of the Ayaka Cultural Group, accusing them of
cultism and detaining them till March, 2014, when the court ordered their
release.”
The petition
noted that Mr. Offor had two years earlier used the police to disrupt the
annual New Yam Festival of the Ezumeri community under the pretext that the
feast was being held without police permit, but the real reason was that he
wanted to humiliate certain distinguished people from the area, especially
Chuks Muomah, the first SAN from Oraifite.
The petition
added that Mr. Offor, a mere private citizen, has been able to use the police
so blatantly against his own people since Mr Abubakar assumed the leadership of
the police.
“This reckless
and unconscionable use of the police to commit gross human rights abuses and
other heinous crimes tends to give both Nigerian citizens and the international
community the impression that Nigeria is a weak state, if not a failed one,”
the petition stated.
The petition
asked the police authorities not to accept the area command office which Mr.
Offor is allegedly building for the police in his hometown because “the
facility will definitely end up as a house of torture for everyone in Oraifite
who may disagree with the controversial government contractor on any issue.
“If he could
currently use SARS so recklessly to hound, harass, detain and torture a number
of his people over civil issues,” the petition argued, “no one can imagine what
will happen to innocent and law abiding citizens when an entire police command
is located in his own house through his so-called benevolence.”
Source: SaharaReporters
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