‘It’s Unthinkable Falsehood’ To Claim Police Demanded N200, 000 Bribe To Release IPOB Member – Enugu CP

The Enugu State Police Command, Thursday, denied detaining and demanding money to bail one Ofornedum Okafor, an IPOB member, who was allegedly arrested at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, alongside his grandfather.

The police command was reacting to a news report purportedly credited to one Emma Powerful, the spokesman of the IPOB, where he alleged that the police authorities were demanding over N200, 000 bribe for Okafor’s bail ‘after extorting the sum of N55, 000 before releasing his grandfather’. Mr Powerful, had in the purported report, vowed that the state police commissioner would ‘pay a heavy price’ should anything happen to the suspect.

A press statement issued by the state command’s public relations officer, ASP Daniel Ndukwe, copied to THE WHISTLER in Enugu, stated that, “The attention of the Enugu State Command of the Nigeria Police Force has been drawn to a baseless and malicious claim making the rounds on social media that one Ofornedum Okafor, an IPOB member, was arrested at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Enugu, alongside his grandfather by the police, and detained on the order of the commissioner of police.”

The state commissioner of police, CP Ahmad AbdurRahman, according to the statement, enjoined the public to ‘disregard such unfounded, baseless and spurious claims, which contain no iota of fact and/or truth’.

According to the statement, “The commissioner finds it unbelievable why anyone will find time to conjure up such unthinkable falsehood aimed at discrediting the command, and by extension the Force, in a matter where the command has been funding the treatment of the said suspect in the mentioned hospital so he can be fit enough to face pending charges against him and four others in the court of law.”

He therefore warned that such acts of calumny against the police aimed at misinforming, misleading and causing tension in the hitherto peaceful state would not be tolerated from individuals or groups, adding that any person(s) found wanting would be made to face the full weight of the law.

The statement added that, “The suspect was taken to the said hospital for treatment at the expense of the police; and is still being treated so he can be fit enough to face criminal prosecution alongside four others, who have already been charged to court and remanded in the Correctional Service custody for the offences of conspiracy, treasonable felony and murder. Also, that the police did not at any point in time demand any sum of money for the bail of the suspect neither was his grandfather or any member of his family arrested, detained and released after extorting the sum of N55, 000 at Central Police Station Enugu, as spuriously alleged.”

Our corresponded reported the clash between members of IPOB and security agencies at Emene in Enugu, on 23rd August, which resulted in many deaths, including two operatives of the DSS.