Kevin Okorie, a lawyer from Port Harcourt, Rivers State, and two other men have been illegally detained for 106 days by the Nigerian Navy for expressly supporting the passing of a bill to create a Nigerian Coast Guard.
FIJ learnt that Okorie and some people had been supporting the bill which had already passed its second reading and public hearing stages.
On September 10, some naval personnel from the Nigerian Navy’s Iwofe Aker Base, Port Harcourt, tracked fellow bill supporters Jeffrey Agogoh and Udo to a location in the city.
From that location, they took these men to their office. Neither man knew that it was a ploy to get them detained, Esther, Okorie’s wife, told FIJ on Friday.
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WHAT OKORIE’S FAMILY KNOWS
Upon getting to the naval base, Agogoh phoned Okorie that his attention was required. Okorie left where he was and drove down to the navy’s office. Before getting there, he told his wife where he was heading to.
Days later, the naval authorities initially denied having Okorie in their facility. But his wife insisted that she knew her husband’s last whereabouts and she was sure he was being held there.
“He was invited to a meeting on September 10 and he didn’t return home that day. The next day, he called me that he was coming back home with some naval officers, but he failed to show up at home. He was also unreachable on the phone,” Esther told FIJ.
“I went to the base on September 13 and they said he was not with them. They then said that I should go and report to the police that he was missing. I insisted that he was in their custody because he informed me of his movement. They angrily sent me away from their office.
“Luckily, my husband called me with an officer’s phone to inform me that he was being detained at the naval base. I then prepared food and took it to him, but they did not grant me access to him. He only spoke with me from another room.
“I have not seen my husband since then. His location in Abuja remains unknown. The last time I spoke with him, he said he did not know why they were detaining him and that he had been asking them what his offence was.
“Two weeks later, some lawyers went to the naval base but they denied he was there with them again. They told me and I had to follow them again.
“On getting there, the naval officers said that we should come back the following Monday. That was when I protested that I would not leave their premises because they had been holding my husband for three 3 weeks and if there was any allegation against him, they should let him have his day in court. Surprisingly, they denied that there was record of him with them.
“I asked them, who was the person I spoke with and brought food for twice in this same place? Who ate the food?” That was when one Officer Eko with phone number 08035362486 said that my husband had been moved to Abuja with no known crime.
“Officer Eko asked me to call him later so that he would tell me where they moved my husband to in Abuja. When I called the officer, he refused to provide specific information as he promised. He repeated what they told me at their office that he had been moved to Abuja and that was all they knew,” Esther told FIJ.
“Our community people have petitioned the NBA for support to get him released and we have been frequenting the naval office without any green light. My children have been crying, refusing to eat and asking to see their dad. We don’t know if he is dead or alive.”
WHY THE NAVY IS DETAINING OKORIE
Okorie and the two other men have remained in detention for weeks.
Esther believes that their detention was in connection with Okorie’s active support for the passage of the coast guard bill.
“What this is all about is the Nigerian Coast Guard Bill. From the little information I have gathered, my husband and others have been writing to the federal government to implement a coast guard in Nigeria. They also wrote to the navy about the need to establish this agency,” Esther explained.
“When I asked the man whose phone number my husband used to call me, he said it was about a letter they wrote about the coast guard.
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“While I am particular about my husband, there are two other people that the navy is holding on to. These two people were the ones the Navy personnel first met with. They are Jeffrey Agogoh and Udo.
“The Navy first had a meeting with them somewhere. After the meeting, the naval officers asked these men to follow them to their base to finalise their discussion not knowing that they were luring them into detention.
“I then asked what was the wrong thing that they had done in writing such a letter. How should that warrant arrest and detention? The man said he didn’t know and it was their bosses who could speak on that.
“I heard that he is being detained at the Defence Intelligence Agency, Nigeria’s primary intelligence agency. Some members of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in Abuja have gone to the DIA but they were told no.”
A screenshot of the Navy’s website on Thursday afternoon.
FIJ could not immediately obtain the Navy’s comment on this story. Its website was inaccessible and other efforts, including calling Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, the Defence Headquarters spokesperson, were unsuccessful, at press time.
Over the years, Nigerian security agencies have built a notorious and undesirable reputation for abducting, illegally detaining and violating citizens’ fundamental rights.
The Nigerian Army recently held ‘Fisayo Soyombo, FIJ’s founder and editor-in-chief, incommunicado for three days after he was arrested from a scene of an undercover investigation into oil bunkering in Port Harcourt. Knowing that Soyombo was a journalist known for gathering evidence on-site did not inform a decision to let him go. They only released him after multiple media organisations and the public expressed disapproval.
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