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A young man named Dr. Okechukwu John Mbonu has recounted how the police acting on a fictitious petition arrested his sister who is over 64 years old and son for over a crime they never committed.
Below is the young man’s ordeal.
Following my very frustrating efforts to get bail for my sister and her son held by the Police due to an alleged petition lodged at the CP Monitoring Unit at Umuahia, Abia State. I posted the following lengthy write up on some my group platforms and one of the responses is attached at the end of the writ-up.
What a country indeed!
As at today, Sunday 28th February 2021, my sister and her son are still in Police custody!
WHAT A COUNTRY!
On Thursday 26th February 2021 by about 2:00pm, I got a call from an unknown number and the voice at the other end turned out to be that of my nephew, Mr. Ikenna Okoye. He was calling me with his wife’s phone.
Ikenna told me that he was arrested at an Ikoyi GT Bank location and was being held at the Ikoyi Divisional Police station at No. 39 Awolowo Road, Ikoyi – apparently with regards to a petition lodged at the CP Monitoring Unit at Umuahia, Abia State. On further investigation, it turned out that my sister (Ikenna’s mother) was also simultaneously picked up by the Police at a GT Bank location in Ikeja and was being held at the Alausa Police station – based on the same petition.
Our family lawyers eventually traced the source of the petition to the CP Monitoring Unit at the Umuahia Police station. After several efforts, we contacted the Investigating Police Office (IPO) in Umuahia who refused bluntly to provide any details of the petition or the petitioner. Using a lawyer dispatched from Port Harcourt to Umuahia, we learnt (unofficially) that the petition was written against my nephew, Mr. Ikenna Okoye.
The petitioner’s claim was that he had an agreement to buy US Dollars from Ikenna and based on the agreement, he was instructed by Ikenna to pay the Naira equivalent to seven different Nigerian bank accounts (including the GT bank account belonging to Ikenna’s mum – Mrs. Ifeoma Okoye). The petitioner further claimed that after making all the Naira transfers into the seven local banks (ninety-six million Naira in total), Ikenna refused to pay him the agreed US Dollar equivalent.
Interestingly, Ikenna has NEVER (ever) carried out any Dollar transactions (buying or selling) with anybody and does not know anybody in Umuahia or Abia State. He has also not been in communication with anyone from Umuahia in the recent past months.
Also, there are no records of any funds transfer(s) into Mrs. Okoye’s personal GT bank account or for that matter, into the bank accounts belonging to her secondary or primary schools located in Ogun State. Mrs. Ifeoma Okoye and her husband, Mr. Chuma Okoye are joint proprietors and owners of a fairly successful secondary school and primary school located in Ogun State. The two schools were set up several years ago and have grown through the couple’s diligence and hard work into one of the good schools in Ogun State.
My sister retired some years ago as a Vice Principal in Lagos State Ministry of Education. She was accorded the prestigious “pens down” ceremony by Lagos State complete with one of the Lagos State Governor’s special awards for her contribution to the State’s Ministry of Education.
After frantic efforts to get some sort of bail for my sister and her son, it became clear that the setup had all the characteristics of an extortion racket!
Apparently to inflict the maximum possible discomfort to the detainees, the two arrests were made by midday on Thursday 25th February which will lead to the possible incarceration of the two people up to at least Monday, 1st March 2021 without infringing on the law of “no detention should last more than forty-eight hours in Police custody”. I hear that the Police does not recognise hours during the weekends as part of the 48 hours count! The discomfort resulting from the long hours of incarceration and detention in our horrible Police cells will (or so they figure) accelerate negotiations along the Nigerian ways of “settling” these types of cases.
My biggest concern is my sister’s health condition. She is over 64 years old and has mild diabetes. For her to incarcerated for some days for an offence she knows little or nothing about is, to say the least, brutal.
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How on earth is it possible for a US Dollar sales transaction of up to ninety-six million Naira to be conducted by telephone between an unknown individual based in Umuahia and two innocent individuals based in Lagos? Even more baffling is the question of the anonymity of the petitioner and the refusal of the Umuahia based Police authorities to release the contents of the petition!
As at today, 27th February 2021 by 18:30 hr, two unfortunate Nigerians are still in Police custody for well over fifty-four (54) hours) based on a secret petition written by a faceless petitioner, who is only known to the Nigerian Police!
The latest I have heard is that my sister and her son can only be bailed on Monday 1st March 2021, except there is an explicit intervention by The Abia State Commissioner of Police! So …
We once had a country!
Below is the response from a member of the same platform:
This is clearly an old scam by some individuals using bogus petitioner(s).
I know a victim of this same ridiculous and evil fraud. The petitioner was somewhere in Nnewi while the poor victim was picked up in Lagos and held at police headquarters Ikeja.
This happened about five years ago because the fellow called me to help him with my police connections.
When I intervened, you could see that the policemen knew it was a scam and asked me not to bother myself with the matter.
If not contained, the next step is normally to ask the victim(s) to pay for all the bogus petitioner(s) and the investigating police officer(s), including the victim(s) to visit Umuahia and then the extortion begins.
The crooks will normally pick on “soft targets” who they think they can easily intimidate. Information has it that they have been successful in extorting payouts (per scheme) of between N500k to N1m in the recent past!
We live in an extremely sick country.
Dr. Okechukwu John MBONU
