Date Published: 07/21/11
Re: Petition by Mr. Umana Okon Umana to the National Security Adviser on Threat to Public Peace
Dear General Azazi,
RESPONSE TO ALLEGED “CONTINUOUS INCITEMENT OF THE PEOPLE OF AKWA IBOM STATE AGAINST THE STATE GOVERNMENT AND CONDUCT OF DR. IME UMANAH THAT MAY LEAD TO TOTAL BREAKDOWN OF PEACE AND SECURITY IN AKWA IBOM STATE”
1. We are legal consultants to Dr. Ime Umanah, the Deputy Governorship candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) in Akwa Ibom State in the last governorship election; hereinafter called “our client”; and we have his instruction to put up this response to the above-titled petition.
2. We apologize for using this means to respond to the alleged petition to you by Mr. Umana Okon Umana against our client. The petition appeared on page 55 of The Nation of Friday, 24 th June, 2011 with syndicated news material on it at page 9 of Daily Sun and several other newspapers on the same day. It was also published on page 17 of the Saturday Vanguard of the next day and several other newspapers.
3. We think that a genuine petition on a serious issue as alleged threat to state security is a wrong subject-matter for pages of newspapers especially when such concerns are addressed to our highest level of security portfolio. It is more worrisome that the petition proceeded from a ‘Secretary to the State Government’ who should have known better; i.e. that the NSA should not be petitioned on a security matter on pages of newspapers except it is mere politics and not a genuine security issue.
4. Given this background, our client is convinced that the alleged petition to the NSA is pure politics and does not disclose any genuine security concern. If not that the public has been fed with the false contents of the alleged petition, our client’s attitude has been to ignore it for what it is since the media is not a proper channel for anybody, talk much an SSG, to petition the NSA. This is more so when the petition is about an alleged security concern which he needs the NSA’s “investigation” and “arraignment” of our client for “whatever criminal aspect” in it.
5. The NSA is kindly urged to use his good offices to investigate the allegations in the material which the SSG now calls incitement and security threat. The SSG knows that all the statements in the said publication are true. It is only a tree that would hear that it would be cut down and still stands waiting for the axe-man. Our client is not a tree. He was forced to cry out when the threat to his life by “the nest of killers” and kidnapping and rape gangs around Uyo Government House became unbearable. Matters came to a head when they spread a rumour that some people jumped into our client’s compound in his village and killed him. This was purely to set the stage for his eventual elimination.
6. When our client cried out to the State Police Commissioner for protection, the CP told him he had orders to arrest him and was rather looking for him. When the danger to the life of our client became too much to keep quiet, he alerted his people. It was easy for the SSG to describe our client’s outcry as “several false, flagrant accusations” but it is important to underline the fact that he never categorically denied any of the allegations apart from sweepingly describing them as false. Why not deny sending our client an apology by SMS? Why not deny that his principal, Dr. Akpabio visited our client’s house in Lagos kneeling and apologizing on the leaked plot to kill our client, begging our client not to allow the world hear? Did our client call the dead as eye-witnesses? Did our client not mention living persons as witnesses? What actually is the SSG denying?
7. The point remains Sir that our client knows as well as many Akwa Ibomites and as even contained in suppressed security reports that the violence in Akwa Ibom State is coming from hoodlums close to the Government House. It is the same gang that our client informs us they have unleashed to kill him and make it appear like he was killed through political thuggery. This is one hallmark of the official terror gang in Uyo; their masterful use of alibi in their operations.
8. The NSA will kindly note the twelfth paragraph in the petition where the SSG pointed out that our client’s outcry against plots to kill him means that “any prospective assassin or kidnapper may seize the moment and/or take the opportunity to perpetrate any of these acts against the said Dr. Ime Umanah”. The NSA should kindly note that this is the way Umana Okon Umana’s squads operate: do-it-and-let-it-look-like-someone-else-did-it.
9. Our client takes this as a concealed further threat covered with the usual alibi. This was how President Jonathan’s Campaign Office in Uyo was set on fire and cars packed within the State Secretariat worth millions of tax payer’s naira razed in circumstances that can only be called ‘mysterious’ if one is looking elsewhere from Government circle. It was meant to look like political gangsterism but the aim was to hang a charge of treason on Senator Akpan Udoedehe, the ACN Governorship candidate, to complete the cycle since our client was earlier charged with “terrorism”. The aim was also to attract federal attention and sympathy for the election. The NSA can launch an investigation into how any Akwa Ibomite (no matter his political leaning) could possibly be minded to set President Jonathan’s campaign office on fire! Or how easy it would have been for any person, without official conspiracy and cooperation, to have access to where those razed cars were parked with round-the-clock security system in the premises! This is the same gang that forged a letter and our client’s signature and distributed to Akwa Ibomites with the lie that our client had stepped down from the last election!
10. Umana Okon Umana has alleged that our client has made overtures to him and to Dr. Akpabio to get the Attorney General to enter a nolle prosequi in the trumped-up charge of terrorism against him. It is preposterous that our client who has never had any contact with Dr. Akpabio or any of his people since November 1, 2010, could be making the alleged overtures. Our client religiously attends his trial in Uyo taking caution and relying on God for the murderous gang not to kill him in the process; as many are gone. It is rather people close to government that come to our client to say it was a political miscalculation to trump-up “terrorism” charge against our client. Indeed, the first time Dr. Akpabio visited where the SSS detained our client on “terrorism” charge at night and an SSS official told our client “let’s talk” to end the matter, our client had pointedly rejected the suggestion on the grounds that he has already been arraigned before a Magistrate. The truth shall ultimately prevail.
11. Sir, our client most respectfully urges you to beam security searchlight on the state of insecurity in Akwa Ibom State and receive the shock of your life. Part of our client’s revelations was that during the days of President Umaru Yar’Adua, Dr. Akpabio had complained to him and some people who are alive that the then State Director of SSS, Mr. Mike Ejiofor had the effrontery to tell him (Akpabio) that he (Akpabio) was the leader of the kidnapping gang terrorizing the state and also had a killer squad. A furious Akpabio boasted that he stormed late President Yar’Adua’s office and demanded Ejiofor’s removal. He boasted that late President Yar’Adua summoned the then SSS Director-General, who came with another SSS official and the SSS DG was ordered to relieve Mr. Ejiofor of his post in Akwa Ibom State; for telling Akpabio the truth!
12. Our Client’s avowed position is that there is no need to search for
“treasonable felons” and “terrorists” in Akwa Ibom State including those that burned President Jonathan’s campaign office and razed government cars to get federal sympathy before the election. Notwithstanding their mastery of alibi, the masterminds of the kidnappings, assassinations and rape in Akwa Ibom State are not too difficult to find after all. How come the culprits have been elusive and the state of insecurity rather worsening? One would expect an innocent government to ask Mr. President to invite the Military to flush out the Akwa Ibom gangs as did innocent Dr. T. A. Orji in Abia State. But the Akwa Ibom gangs are having a field day unfettered.
13. Finally Sir, we urge you to find the best way to direct a high level investigation into whether there is an official bent to the state of insecurity in Akwa Ibom State or not; and whether Umana Okon Umana and his principal, had ever plotted to kill our client. But in respect of the criminal trial which the SSG is urging against our client for expressing himself, we urge the NSA to ignore him. Our client is entitled by the Constitution to the Right to Freedom of Expression. He can say what he knows to be the truth against the SSG and his principal. It can never be a crime. The SSG wishes in vain that it is a crime to state facts or voice out an opinion against the misdeeds of the government he serves. But thank God this is Democracy.
14. The SSG will also be shocked to be advised by his lawyer who signed the petition that there is “no criminal aspect” of expression of personal views in the Criminal Code or any statute. We however admit that our client’s liberty does not extend to lying against the SSG or any one. But the SSG’s lawyer ought to have advised him that if he felt defamed, his remedy lies not in yet another “criminal charge” but in the libel Court. This is not the first time a person in authority would fear that the truth or criticism could incite the people against him. It happened during the Second Republic. In ARTHUR NWANKWO V STATE (1985) 6 NCLR 228, there was similar fear leading to a criminal charge. But the Court of Appeal held that in a Democracy, a Governor’s remedy to criticism is not in a criminal charge for incitement. The people are free to voice out their mind to hold government accountable. An aggrieved incumbent can file a civil suit for libel. We have our client’s authority to accept the SSG’s writ for libel and respond appropriately. The SSG’s anticipated libel suit would be a good “Oputa Panel” kind of gathering for at least 100 courageous Akwa Ibomites who are not afraid of death to come to the Civil Court and tell the SSG and the public with world media coverage what they know about the state of insecurity in Akwa Ibom State. This is our client’s position on the “criminal aspect” of the publication that has unsettled the SSG.
15. Thank you, sir, for your patience in indulging our client’s response. We await your directives on careful investigation of the security challenges in our client’s State.
Signed:
AUXANO LAW CONSULT
Legal Consultants to Dr. Ime Umanah
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