My attention has been drawn to several publications in the print and social media wherein Ned Nwoko alleged that a plan to assassinate him is being sponsored by me. I also refer to a recent press conference held by the same Ned Nwoko wherein he alleged that the prisoner who told him of the plan to assassinate him has mysteriously died. He also accused me of being responsible for the death of the alleged prisoner/informant. I categorically state again that these allegations are completely false and a figment of Ned Nwoko’s infantile imagination. I have not planned nor sponsored any plot to assassinate Ned Nwoko.
I was reliably informed by my wife, Regina Daniels
who was also informed by one Wale Jana that the suspects who were arrested and
remanded at the Kuje Correctional Center in connection with the murder case in
my village are plotting to cause me harm and possibly kill me. From the
information made available to me the evil plot is being sponsored by one Chief
Gabriel Ogbechie. I came to this conclusion because according to the report
sent to my wife by Wale Jana, it said an inmate in the same room with the
suspects at the correctional facility who pretended to be sleeping heard them
plotting to harm me. From what he heard, the sponsor of the planned attack owns
a filling station and is in the business of Oil and Gas and hails from a
community around. As far as I know, the only person who fits that description
is one Chief Gabriel Ogbechie.
Screenshots of the purported WhatsApp messages
between Regina Daniels’ informant and the random prisoner were attached to the
petition.
On the 4th of December 2020, I had audience with the
Commissioner of Police, FCT Command where I read the said petition and pointed
out the fact that same was speculative with three layers of hearsay: The
prisoner telling Wale Jana, Wale Jana telling Regina Daniels who then tells Ned
Nwoko the tale of an alleged plot. Interestingly, the prisoner and/or Wale Jana
never mentioned my name. The conclusion that “the only person who fits that
description is one Chief Gabriel Ogbechie” is entirely that of Ned Nwoko.
The moment I stepped out of the office of the FCT
Police Commissioner, Ned Nwoko and his social media trolls went into frenzy
that I have been arrested for plotting to assassinate Ned Nwoko. That was
false, I was NEVER arrested. I have it on good authority that in his bid to rub
my name further in the mud, Ned Nwoko allegedly placed a frantic call to a
member of staff of a popular television channel, asking him to carry the fake
news of my arrest as breaking news. Abiding by the ethics of his profession,
the gentleman refused despite being offered a blank cheque to propagate this
evil on my person.
Regardless, the FCT Police Command thoroughly
investigated the case. They visited the prisons, interviewed the actors and
they reached the conclusion that the petition was spurious and frivolous.
Suddenly, the Police Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID Abuja) asked
that the case be transferred to them.
My lawyers wrote a petition to the Inspector General
of Police on the 22nd of December 2020 requesting that his office take over the
case to thoroughly investigate it.
The IGP Monitoring Team invited Ned Nwoko for
questioning. He was asked to produce the prisoner who told him and Regina
Daniels of the plot to kill him. Ned Nwoko suddenly declared that the prisoner
who told him/Regina Daniel of the plot is one Ossy Biose and that he was
released from prison and died soon afterwards! How? When? Ned Nwoko had no
answers to any of the questions. When the IGP Monitoring Unit asked him to
provide details of the family of the alleged deceased, he declined!
As soon as Ned Nwoko stepped out of the Police
Office, his social media trolls went wild with the news that the prisoner who
told him that there was a plan to kill him has died mysteriously and that I am
being fingered as the likely suspect.
The alleged prisoner, named Ossy Biose, is known only to Ned Nwoko and Regina Daniels. At his press conference, Ned Nwoko mentions that he knows the prisoner’s family and also provided explicit details of Ossy Biose’s sojourn to prison. This leads me to believe that he had a pre-existing relationship with him. Only Ned Nwoko knows the cause of death and he is the only one in a position to explain why the person known only to him and his wife suddenly passed.
The name Ossy Biose, the now allegedly deceased
prisoner was only mentioned for the first time by Ned Nwoko at the IGP’s office
when he was asked to substantiate his allegation and as at this time, Ossy
Biose was already deceased, according to Ned Nwoko. Pray tell: how can someone
be responsible for the death of someone whose name was only mentioned after he
was dead and whose identity Ned Nwoko still refuses to disclose to the Police?
Frankly, the truth of Ned Nwoko’s allegations is
that they are all a work of fiction, a poor movie script that has reached its
end.
Also, Ned Nwoko in his petition stated that the
prisoner shared the same room at Kuje Correctional Facility with two boys from
Idumuje Ugboko. This puts the location of the alleged plot squarely at Kuje
Correctional Facility. Quite to the contrary, the two prisoners from
Idumuje-Ugboko who are in prison on account of Ned Nwoko are NOT in Kuje
Correctional Facility. They are, infact, held at Suleja Correctional Facility,
fifty-two kilometers away from Kuje Correctional Facility. They were arraigned
on the 26th of August 2020 and the Judge ordered that they be remanded in Kuje
Correctional Facility. However, due to the COVID 19 pandemic, they were
remanded in Suleja Correctional Facility since the 26th of August 2020 and have
remained there till date. These are the people that Ned Nwoko, in his
hallucinatory state, accuses of conspiracy to assassinate him and who are
allegedly being sponsored by an oil magnate.
In writing his work of fiction, Ned Nwoko could not
do his simple due diligence to even ascertain the location of the two people
who are in prison on his account and he is now maligning my integrity and
reputation.
In the alleged WhatsApp exchange attached to the
petition, one of the prisoners from Idumuje-Ugboko was mentioned as Cheta and
the exchange stated that Ned Nwoko put them in prison. I do not know Cheta,
neither have I met nor interacted with him. My preliminary checks revealed the
full names of the said prisoners to be Cheta Okolo and Onyisi Esuzor. They are
both members of the Vigilante Group in the village. In the course of their
duty, they accosted a miscreant vandalizing street lights in the village. The
person so accosted turned out to be Ned Nwoko’s acolyte in the village. At the
behest of Ned Nwoko, Cheta Okolo and Onyisi Esuzor were promptly arrested and
arraigned before the courts in Delta State for ATTEMPTED MURDER. The courts
discharged and acquitted them as no case was established against them.
Dissatisfied, men from FCID Abuja came all the way to Idumuje-Ugboko, arrested
these boys on the 30th of July 2020 and locked them up for three weeks at the
FCID. On the 26th of August 2020, they were arraigned before a judge in Abuja,
this time charged with TERRORISM! They have been in Suleja Prison for five
months now and counting. This is all on account of Ned Nwoko, according to the
WhatsApp message exchange between Regina Daniels and her informant.
Ned Nwoko and I are from the same community, Idumuje
Ugboko, Aniocha North Local Government Area, Delta State. Ned Nwoko desires 100
hectares of land to build a University in the community, a noble gesture by all
means. The King and Ned Nwoko, who are first cousins, have differing opinion on
how best to acquire the land needed for the University. Sometime in 2017, I had
an extensive meeting with Ned Nwoko in his house in Abuja and I appealed to him
to allow peace to reign in the community. I spelt out what I believed was a
clear road map for him to acquire the 100 hectares of land he needs to build
his University. Ned Nwoko wants 100 hectares of land, contiguous to his
existing 33 hectares of land on which he built his private residence. Part of
the 100 hectares of land belongs to the Community but most of it are owned by
private individuals. The King simply requests that Ned Nwoko follows due
process; put in an application for the land, pay the token that is due to the
community and gets the land. With regards the land that belongs to private
individuals, he was advised to engage the owners of the land and take the
necessary legal steps to acquire it. However, Ned Nwoko wants none of it, he
believes he is above the laws of the community and is not ready to conform to
simple dictates of communal living.
I am in support of the University. The King is in
support of the University. The community is happy to host the University. The
King, His Royal Highness Obi Chukwunonso Nwoko who ascended the throne about
four years ago desires his Staff of Office. Ned Nwoko has used every subterfuge
in the book to ensure the King does not get his staff of office. To no avail, I
have appealed to Ned Nwoko on numerous occasions to follow due process in the
acquisition of his desired portion of land and to also allow the newly
installed King be presented his staff of Office.
In the last four years alone:
a. The King,
His Royal Highness Obi Chukwunonso Nwoko, who is currently 70 years old has
been accused of killing his father, the immediate past King who died at the
ripe old age of 91 years.
b. The King
and twelve other members of the community have been accused and charged to a
court in Abuja on account of terrorism.
c. Policemen,
at the behest of Ned Nwoko, have invaded the Palace in the dead of the night,
picked up the King like a common criminal and locked him up in Asaba. It took
the intervention of the Government of Delta State to get the King out of the
needless harassment.
d. Two
members of the community were accused of murder of someone known only to Ned
Nwoko. Despite their strident denial they were locked up and charged to court.
They spent three years in prison before the courts threw out the case for lack
of evidence. Regardless three years of their lives have been lost.
e. Three
members of the community are currently held at Suleja Prison on account of Ned
Nwoko on an alleged charge of terrorism.
f. In the
past two years, more than 8 members of the community have spent time at prisons
in Abuja and some up to 14 months on account of alleged terrorism
Idumuje Ugboko, a small agrarian and peaceful
community on the fringes of Delta State has been dragged into the national and
public space by Ned Nwoko all for the wrong reasons. He has accused indigenes
of terrorism or murder and is now hallucinating over a purported plan to
assassinate him.
Having observed with revulsion, the great lengths
Ned has gone to launch a heinous smear campaign against me, I am now completely
doubtless that Ned Nwoko is very much capable of strategically executing plans
and actions to bring about a desired result. I have severally engaged and
admonished him to use his wealth to facilitate the economic progress of the
bright minds in our community. Once again, I urge him to channel his talents to
bring about an amicable end to the ongoing community conflict instead of waging
a campaign of oppression. Hapless members of the community have been dragged
before judges in Abuja and given very stringent bail conditions; some asked to
bring sureties with assets of fifty million naira and above including houses in
Abuja. This is way beyond what a lot of them can fathom or afford, so they
simply rot in prison in Abuja. I have seen poor village women, most of them
farmers, donate as little as five hundred naira into the pool of funds to raise
the millions of naira needed to bail their children from jail in Abuja on
account of Ned Nwoko. Despite the fact that I have no relationship with most of
the oppressed and accused persons, I have provided the much-needed assistance
for bail as much as I can. I have also made provisions for first-rate legal
representation for the King and some of the accused persons.
Ned Nwoko has severally asked me to stop supporting
the King as he believes my intervention prevents him from having his
unrestrained way in the community. All these attacks and fabricated falsehoods
against my person are to scare me into allowing him continue his harassment and
intimidation of poor and defenseless members of our Community. This is wrong!
I have tried severally to reach out to him to
arrange a forum of dialogue to resolve whatever he believes is conflict between
us. He has evaded and sabotaged every single attempt I have made. Instead, he
keeps fabricating and weaving a web of lies around me. I understand his family
is in the show business and it is necessary they remain in the news to maintain
the smokescreen of media hype. However, I urge him to keep me out of his social
media antics and refrain from using my name as content. I simply have no desire
to be a part of the fictitious drama borne out of the figment of his colorful
imagination.
My lawyers have written to Ned Nwoko demanding a
retraction, apology and payment of damages for the scurrilous statements and
publications made by him and very soon, he would have his day in Court.
I shall continue to take legal steps to protect my
hard earned reputation and integrity. Ned Nwoko is not above the laws of the
Federal Republic of Nigeria. ant. I categorically state again that these
allegations are completely false and a figment of Ned Nwoko’s infantile
imagination. I have not planned nor sponsored any plot to assassinate Ned
Nwoko.
No comments:
Post a Comment