Date Published: 10/23/09

HRJPF - CD

93, Market Road, First Floor (Back)

E-mail: hrjpfoundation@yahoo.com, cdsoutheastzone@yahoo.com

19 th October, 2009

JOINT PRESS RELEASE

POLICE SEAL HRJPF, CD OFFICE…HUNT FOR NWOSU ET AL

Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation (HRJPF) and the Campaign for Democracy (CD), South-East Zone, wish to draw the attention of President Umaru Musa Yar’adua to the unlawful invasion and sealing of their office by police men from the Aba Area Command on the purported order of Zone 9, Umuahia, on Wednesday, 14th October, 2009.

The sealing of the office of the human rights/pro-democracy groups by the heavily armed policemen, numbering over twenty was not unconnected with the HRJPF’s and CD’s condemnation of the use of security agents from Eagles’ Squad, State CID, Owerri, and Area Command, Aba, by the General Overseer of the Living Christ Mission, Nkwerre, Bishop Victor Obediah Onukaogu Obiajunwa, aka, Daddy Hezekiah, to intimidate and overawe the publisher and crew members of the National Telegraph, an Owerri-based newspaper, over its 1st September, 2007, edition captioned "Wickedness: Daddy Hezekiah, General Overseer, Living Christ Mission attacks kinsmen with thugs." According to the story, the clergy "…forcefully sacked his kinsmen, pulled down their village hall and confiscated their lands with thugs in Nkwerre, Imo State."

Recall that "Daddy Hezekiah" had on 13th October, 2007, used his friends and kinsmen in the police, including one Sergeant Martin Osunkwo – orderly to one Justice Akomas of Osisioma High Court of Abia State - to abduct and whisk Comrade Chidi Nwosu, the President, HRJPF and Regional Chairman (South-East), CD, to Eagles’ Squad, State CID, Owerri, where he was tortured, humiliated, and detained in a 24/9 feet dungeon.

Recall also that Nwosu, after his release, had obtained an injunction from the Ututu High Court of Abia State, with suit no. HUT/3M/08, restraining Daddy Hezekiah, the Abia and Imo States Commissioners of Police, the AIG Zone 9, and five others, either by themselves or by their agents from using the instrumentality of the police to harass, arrest, detain, threaten and intimidate him (Nwosu).

But in a flagrant disregard for court orders, agents of the dreaded clergy who boasts of having the police and the judiciary in his pocket, invaded and sealed the office of the HRJPF and the CD, following their failure to arrest Nwosu and other officers of the human rights/pro-democracy groups.

It beats our imagination that police men, especially from the Legal Unit of Zone Umuahia, and Area Command, Aba, would for perishable worldly benefits make themselves willing and ready tools in the hands of aggressively intolerant clergy noted for suppressing dissenting voices in his community – Nkwerre.

While condemning in its entirety the degeneration of police officers from Zone 9 and Aba Area Command into an apparatus for the subjugation of critics and perceived enemies of "Daddy Hezekiah", the HRJPF and the CD call on President Yar’adua to, as a matter of urgent importance:

1) Order the Inspector-General of Police to call the police officers to order by asking them to obey the court order, unlock our doors and release our equipments, which they carted;

2) Set up an independent panel, compromising the State Security Services and the Police from Force Headquarters to investigate the allegation contained in the publication of the National Telegraph, as officers of Zone 9 have compromised.

With the above demand met, the HRJPF and the CD will not only be reassured of the commitment of the present administration to respect for rule of law but also serve as a deterrent against future reoccurrence of this act of criminality.

Toyin Oloye,

General Secretary,

Human Rights, Justice and Peace Foundation (HRJPF).

David Kalu,

Regional Secretary,

Campaign for Democragy (CD),

South-East Zone.