‘KIDNAP’ OF BONAVENTURE MOKWE BY ANAMBRA GOVERNMENT; WHO WILL CALL EMPEROR PETER OBI TO ORDER?

Now
I say that with cruelty and oppression, it is everybody’s business to interfere
when they see it

Anna
Sewell

The
deadliest foe of democracy is not autocracy but liberty frenzied

If there is anything Nigerian must not allow ever in
the constitution; it is that State Government must not be allowed to have state
police, at least, not with men like Governor Peter Obi who feels like lord of
the ring and emperor of Anambra State. That a governor who came into power
through the rule of law could brazenly abused the law, using the agent of
security to intimidate former childhood friends and political enemies is a slap
on democracy, which we purportedly claim to practice,

For crying out loud, why has Governor Peter Obi not
ordered the Nigerian Police to unconditionally release Chief Bonaventure Mokwe
whom he ordered his arrest, despite all glaring evidences that this man was
innocent of all the accusation plotted against him by his enemies? When has it
become a crime to be successful in a society that the governor has to
personally prune to size; simply because a man is a competitor of the
governor’s friend? What ‘crime’ has Bonaventure committed that should warrant
his being detained in SARS for over three months?

For many who are not familiar
with the case; here is a brief story of it as narrated by NOPRIN: “The police
arrested Chief Bonaventure Mokwe after a stage-managed police search of his
UPPER CLASS HOTEL in Onitsha on August 1, 2013 and the ‘recovery’ of
incriminating objects, including two old dry human skulls, two AK47 riffles and
some ammunition, as well as a military cap.

The police also arrested
10 of his hotel workers, including Mr. Justin Nwankwo a PhD student at the
Nnamdi Azikiwe University who works in the hotel to earn income to pay for his
academic program. The police then proceeded to the Anambra State Ministry of
Justice, Onitsha where Chief Mokwe’s wife- Mrs.
Nkiru Mokwe, a lawyer, works as a Chief State Counsel and also
arrested her.

Chief Mokwe and his wife
were brought back in handcuffs, left in a police vehicle parked opposite his
hotel and made to watch as the hotel was pulled down to rubbles on the orders
and personal supervision of Governor Peter Obi of Anambra State.

Governor Obi ordered the
demolition of the hotel without any prior investigation to ascertain the
veracity and credibility of the information he and the police claimed to have
received that Chief Mokwe is a ‘ritualist’. The Governor carried out the
demolition with the aid of his security details and a large number of Onitsha
youths whose leader has now been identified as the kingpin in the set up plot
against Chief Mokwe.

Prior to the demolition,
some police officers had watched as a mob of youth invaded, vandalized and
robbed several shops belonging to Chief Mokwe’s tenants in his Plaza located
beside the hotel.

The man who lodged and
planted the incriminating objects in room 102 of Upper Class Hotel and went
away with the room key has been identified as one Mr. Olisa Egbuchiem who
checked into the room under the disguised identity of John Obi. His father is
said to be in the mortuary business for several years. Also identified as the
chief plotter is one Mr. Ayadi Mba who contracted Mr. Olisa Egbuchiem to plant
the incriminating objects in the room. Many others who played various roles in
the whole set up have also been identified.      

It is worthy of note
that prior to Chief Mokwe’ arrest and the demolition of his hotel, he had
written petitions to the CP Anambra and  the
Obi of Onitsha alerting them to the invasion of his Plaza/Park by some armed
youths led by the self-same Mr. Ayadi Mba. Mr. Ayadi Mba was said to have
assaulted, injured and dispossessed traders at the Plaza and also collected at
gun point all the money generated from the day’s business from the Plaza
caretakers.

Chief Mokwe had on
several other occasions alerted the police and traditional authorities in the
state about persistent threats by this same man and his gang, but no action was
taken by either the police or traditional authorities before this frame up
leading to his current ordeal. In all the cases of threat and attack which
Chief Mokwe reported to the police and to the Obi of Onitsha, the same group of
youths of Umudei village in Onitsha were involved. They were led by Mr. Ayadi
Mba who also hails from Umudei village.

Following the incessant
threats, harassment and attacks by this same Mr. Ayadi Mba on the life and
business of Chief Mokwe, and the failure and neglect by the police and the Obi
of Onitsha to respond to his written complaints, he approached the court and
obtained a court order restraining Mr. Ayadi Mba and a police officer whom he
was using to harass drivers in his Park. The Court issued restraining Orders
which were served on Mr. Ayadi Mba, the aforementioned police officer and the
Commissioner of Police, Anambra. A copy of the Order was also sent to the Obi
of Onitsha through his palace secretary, by one Mr. Dubem Chude. With this
Court Order, Anyamelum bus drivers started loading at Chief Mokwe’s park.

Rather than being
restrained by the Court Order, Mr. Ayadi Mba became more determined in his
excesses culminating in his hatching the frame-up  plot which saw him and others planting
incriminating objects on Chief Mokwe with the intent to use the police to
eliminate him in custody. Despite several petitions by Chief Mokwe’s lawyers
informing the Police authorities in Anambra about the criminal activities of
Mr. Ayadi Mba and his cohorts, and linking them with the planting of the objects
at the hotel, the police are yet to arrest them or commence investigations into
the complaints against them”.

This is the ocean that
Bonaventure has found himself under the emperor Peter Obi led leadership. It is
sheer wickedness and an unjustifiable act of illegality to continue to detain a
man more than three months after he was arrested over a phantom crime. Why
should people in authority partake in or acquiesce to punishing a man unjustly?
Why should a man’s business be destroyed to settle scores? Why should a whole
family, dependants and employees be denied the presence and responsibilities of
their bread winner and employer? In case Peter Obi do not know, the hotel he
illegally destroyed was built in 1973, when Obi was still a teenager, unsure of
his future.

For a man who grew up
with Peter Obi in the same street to be so humiliated despite his innocence
goes to show that the All Progressive Grand Alliance is a party formed to
enslave Anambrarians and yet they still come out seeking for their votes.

What manner of police
who went to arrest Bonaventure’s wife, who happened to be a lawyer that will
spit on a woman simply because she dares to ask why she was been arrested? Yes!
A policeman spat on Nkiru’s face. Whoever that police is, that committed such
evil act, should be brought to book, and even if the woman cannot identify
which of the police spat on her; all the policemen that went to make the arrest
should be filed out for them to identify who among them did such dastardly and
bastardly act. How could the police arrest an innocent woman and put her in a ‘Black
Maria’ as if she was a condemned criminal? Only in Emperor Peter Obi and APGA
will such take place.

Here is a man who has
not left his family for a full month in the past fifteen years, to be subjected
to trauma in prison, by the same government who use his tax to fund his
electoral promises for three months now. The real perpetrators have been found
and Mr. Obi should be bold enough to arrest them rather than keep an innocent
man in SARS, Akwuzu, Anambra State. The police must not allow themselves to be
used to shed an innocent man blood, for keeping him away from his family and
holding his freedom is tantamount to killing him. Such blood will always cry up
to the throne of heaven for justice and when it does, the repercussion goes into
generation. Let the police be warned that they do not share in the heavenly
punishment that awaits Peter Obi.

Nigerians must call
Governor peter Obi to order and not allow him to keep Bonaventure longer.
Failure to do this will eventually become a norm by our criminal political
leaders tomorrow; and who will cry our cause when we do not cry others now. “He
that will make his own liberty secure must guard even his enemy from
oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will
reach to himself”, says Thomas Paine.

We do know that Governor
Peter Obi has realized his foolery in hurriedly destroying the hotel and
incarcerating him away from public attention. We do know that the emperor
governor is afraid that the release of Bonaventure will spark of a legal battle
which will be detrimental to his image. We do also know that Mr. Peter Obi do
not want Chief Bonaventure to be released until the election will be concluded;
when he would have rigged Mr Obaino into government house, knowing that
releasing him now will be a bad image for the APGA candidate. But Nigerians do
not care what Obi and his political leaning is; he must be forced to release
Bonaventure Mokwe and apologize for all the hurt caused him while compensating
him for all he has lost; and until this is done, the media war that will
rubbish the APGA candidate has just begun. On this you can count on me that
APGA will never occupy the seat of power in Anambra State.

The time is ticking and
Emperor Obi must act fast before the 20th of October, 2013. It’s not
a threat but a promise. Men like governor Obi do not deserve to lead; neither
do they have the moral justification to install a candidate who will succeed them.
The continous detention of Chief Bonaventure Mokwe will be the Albatross that
will consume APGA in the November 2013 election.

These little things matter…

Fejiro
Oliver, a Journalist can be reached on secretsreporters@gmail.com and +2348026797588 (sms only
please).  Engage him on twitter
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