Unlawful detention: Enugu housewife seeks justice for incarcerated husband
01 October 2024 |
5:56 am
An Enugu housewife, Mrs Nkoli Nzekwe, is seeking justice for her husband, Chief Tochukwu Nzekwe. She alleged that he had been falsely remanded in the Enugu Correctional Facility on a trumped-up charge of promoting a local war by the police.
An Enugu housewife, Mrs Nkoli Nzekwe, is seeking justice for her husband, Chief Tochukwu Nzekwe. She alleged that he had been falsely remanded in the Enugu Correctional Facility on a trumped-up charge of promoting a local war by the police.
In a statement, Mrs Nzekwe narrated that her husband, a prominent businessman and a managing director of a renowned road construction firm, was arrested for a matter that did not concern him.
The distraught woman said that one of her husband’s company’s trucks mistakenly drove on a newly tarred road and scratched the road. Consequently, the driver was brutally assaulted.
“The driver sued the construction firm and police officers attached to the managing director for infringing on his fundamental rights and demanded damages over the physical assault and near-death experience,” the woman said.
She expressed surprise that while her husband went about his usual business on September 26, 2024, he was unaware he was being tracked by a group of men led by an individual who allegedly identified himself as an officer from the Commissioner of Police’s office, Enugu.
“He was accompanied by three police officers attached to the firm. These men, alongside the police officers, illegally detained my husband, Chief Nzekwe, at a hotel where he had been lured under the pretence of a business meeting.
“Once there, my husband was ambushed, and his phone was forcibly seized to prevent him from contacting his lawyers or relatives. He was violently assaulted, handcuffed, and blindfolded.
“As his illegal detention escalated, my husband was swiftly arraigned before Magistrate Chukwuani at about 5:20 p.m. on the same day of his arrest, with three fully armed police officers present in the courtroom, creating an intimidating atmosphere.
“To my husband’s chagrin, they mischievously preferred a charge unconnected with the malicious damage claim they had hitherto listed on his arraignment notice.
“They deliberately charged him with promoting a native war, an offence unconnected with the damage said to have been occasioned by my husband’s company’s driver, which event does not concern my husband as a person.
“These mischievous schemers ensured that they got him remanded in custody, as the Magistrate declined jurisdiction to entertain the matter.
“The question I ask is, how does the scratching of the road concern my husband, Chief Nzekwe, as a person?” she queried. Therefore, she called on the Inspector General of Police to intervene, assess, and correct the matter in the interests of peace and justice.
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