Cleric alleges threat to life over stance on Edo hospital crisis

A FORMER member of the House of Representatives, Bishop Ezekiel Orhevba has petitioned the Edo State Command of the Nigeria Police Force alleging threat to his life by “unknown policemen” through anonymous sinister text messages from unknown phone numbers.

The cleric said the development may have been informed by his stance on the crisis-ridden Federal Psychiatric Hospital in the state as communicated in his letter to President Muhammadu Buhari.

In the petition to the Area Commander, Sapele Road, Benin City, a copy which was obtained by The Guardian, Orhevba alleged that barely one week after he wrote the President on the dilapidated state of the hospital which has been embroiled in crisis for over four years, seven policemen came to his residence in a Sienna jeep and two of them who were sporting face caps and “partially hooded with hand gloves” told him that they were a “mixed police squad” from Alagbon Close, Benin Area Commander’s office, Okhoro and New Benin police stations after enquiring about a senior official of the hospital.

But in a recent interview with The Guardian, the hospital’s Managing Director, Dr. Sony Olotu described the cleric’s letter as not representative of the happenings at the health institution.

“From what he said in those publications, I can bet that he does not even know the hospital or has he visited the hospital because if he knows the hospital, what he will see will tell him that everything he has heard or things he was propagating were all erroneous and misleading and a calculated attempt to call a dog a bad name so that you can hang it, ” Olotu had said.

Orhevba said after being chased from his residence after a failed kidnap attempt, the same set of ‘policemen’ revisited in the wee hours of Monday but retreated due to the motley crowd at his house.

He, therefore, called on the police authorities to arrest those he suspects were behind the “attempted kidnap and possible murder.”

He alleged that he received a threat message on July 23 where he was warned to back off from issues relating to the hospital and another on July 29 where he was threatened with death if he ever reported the matter to the police before a July 30 receipt of similar threat on same issue.

The Guardian, however, gathered that the hospital officials mentioned in Orhevba’s petition had been invited for questioning by the police authorities.