Several individuals recently discharged from detention have accused the Rivers State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) of attempting to falsely implicate Rt Hon Edison Ehie, Chief of Staff to Governor Siminalayi Fubara, in the burning of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
Speaking to reporters, the former detainees — Oladele Lukman, Chime, MacPherson and Kenneth Kpasa — detailed what they described as a coordinated campaign of arrest, coercion, and intimidation to force confessions implicating Ehie in multiple crimes.
“Our ordeal began with the arbitrary arrest of Oladele Lukman on 5 December 2023,” one of them said. “On 16 December, Chime and MacPherson were violently taken at Ogbakiri Junction, East-West Road, while returning from a funeral. On 5 January 2024, Kpasa was abducted in GRA, Port Harcourt, by a convoy of three Hilux vans.”
The group said they were blindfolded and taken to the Federal Intelligence Response Team (F-IRT) facility in Port Harcourt under the pretext that the vehicle they were travelling in was stolen — a claim they allege was fabricated to detain them.
Once in custody, they were reportedly pressured to implicate Ehie in three serious allegations: the murder of SP Bako Angbashim, an alleged assassination attempt on Hon Martins Amaewhule, and the arson at the State Assembly complex.
“At F-IRT, we were denied access to lawyers. When permitted to write statements, we were stopped mid-way because our accounts did not implicate Ehie,” one detainee said.
They further alleged that a serving member of the State House of Assembly — described as an ally of Minister Nyesom Wike — visited the facility with a uniformed officer and pressured them to fabricate claims against Ehie. Upon their refusal, they were allegedly subjected to beatings, starvation and psychological torture.
“In a later visit, the same lawmaker and a former Ikwerre LGA chairman returned with an offer: money and a fully paid trip to Ghana or any country of our choice for us and our families — if we agreed to falsely name Ehie. We rejected it,” they said.
They recounted further abuse during their transfer to Abuja, where the same offers — including ₦200 million — were allegedly made to Kpasa in exchange for a false confession. One detainee claimed that security agents tried to coerce another detainee, known as Donald, to falsely identify him as an arsonist. Donald later admitted he had been pressured by police and had previously known the late SP Bako.
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“Due to deteriorating health, MacPherson was released on 16 January 2024,” the statement continued. “Yet new unrelated charges — eventually totalling seven — were filed against us. We were held at Kuje Correctional Facility for six months before the matter was transferred to the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt.”
In November 2024, the charges were dismissed, ending what the group described as nearly a year of wrongful detention and abuse.
They have called on Nigerians to speak out against the alleged politicisation of security agencies, warning that such practices pose a grave threat to civil liberties.
“This was a silent admission of the grave injustice we suffered. Our story is a warning: no political agenda should ever weaponise the state’s security apparatus against innocent citizens,” they said.
