₦airaland Forum

The Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC on Tuesday 26 February, 2013 arraigned the son of former governor of Kogi State, Prince Abubakar Audu, Mustapha Audu, his wife Zahrah M. Audu, alongside their company, Constructor Guild Limited before Justice Abubakar Sadiq Umar of the Federal Capital Territory High Court, Maitama, Abuja for obtaining money under false pretence to the tune of N18 million (Eighteen Million Naira).

One of the charge against the accused persons read, "That you Mustapha Audu, Zahra M. Audu in your capacity as Directors of Constructors Guild Limited and you Constructors Guild Limited on or about the 7th day of January 2010 in Abuja within the jurisdiction of this Honourable court obtained the sum of three Million naira from one Nike kolawole under the pretence of helping her to get a four bedroom townhouse at Ruskin Terrace situate at katampe Extension Abuja which you knew to be false and thereby committed an offence contrary to section 1(1)(a) of the Advance Fee Fraud and other Fraud Related Offences Act 2006 and punishable under Section 1(3)of the same act."

The accused persons who pleaded not guilty to the three count charge were alleged to have falsely obtained the money in their capacity as directors in the said company from one Nike kolawole under the pretence that they will get her a four- bedroom house at Katampe Extension, Abuja; and another property at Caemly Estate, Idu Sabo, Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.

Following their plea, their counsel, Kingsley Akpokona moved a motion for bail on behalf of his clients, but was opposed by the prosecution counsel, Mr. Samuel Ugwuegbulam who prayed the court for time to respond to the application.

While consenting to the prosecution's request for time to respond to the application for bail, Justice Umar remanded the first accused, Mustapha Audu in Kujeprison but allowed the second accused person, Zahrah M. Audu to continue to enjoy the administrative bail earlier granted her.

The case has been adjourned to Thursday February 28, 2013 for hearing of the bail application.

Media & Publicity Unit
26th February, 2013

Muri/Sam Governorship. Campaign Council,
Social Democratic party State secretariat
Lokoja

December 1, 2023

My dear Mr Bethrand Onuoha, Sir

1. I read with bewilderment and trepidation, your menacing threats
to visit some unstated consequences on my person in the event that I fail to substantiate the statement of the Kogi State Governorship Campaign Council, to which I am an official spokesman.

2. Sir, your descent to threat and intimidation as the official response to our justifiable statement alerting the world of your involvement in promoting the insurrection at the INEC Office Lokoja on Wednesday amounts to brazen self-help and this goes to further reinforce our earlier opinion that you are serial abuser of your high office and esteemed position for personal ends.

3. Sir, the statement of SDP Campaign Council to the effect that you Bethrand Onouha was privy to the said insurrection by thugs of Governor Yahaya Bello and had infact deployed some policemen in mufti to partner with the thugs to attack our legal team based on information at our disposal was absolutely justified.

4. Sir, given your antecedents as a man who had not only repeatedly demonstrated aggressive bias and crass partisanship in the course of the just concluded electioneering process, but also as one who is on record to have taken credit for masterminding the massacre of innocent citizens including your own policemen on November 7, (2023) our outcry against your obvious involvement in orchestrating the insurrection by the thugs is indeed justified. We had issued a similar statement on Wednesday November 2, that you were putting together a rogue force of security personnnel to attack and kill our Director General, ustaz Sheik Ibrahim Jibril and our Youth Leader, Alhaji Ahmed Attah five days before you ordered the attack but they were protected by God almighty, although your action led to the cold blooded murder of five persons including the police men. But it's instructive to point out that our statement then was 100 percent accurate. That is why we take very seriously any information that you are orchestrating attacks by thugs and policemen.

5. Sir, in the event that you forget , I wish to refreshen your memory about the invasion and attack on the private residence of the Director General(DG) of our campaign Council, Ustaz Sheik Ibrahim Jubril on November 7, during which three policemen including Inspector.Egbunu was killed at the scene while Inspector Atabor was taken alive on executed on transit between Anyigba and Lokoja by the gunmen you deployed for the massacre. An unidentified man in uniform believed to be a policeman, or perhaps one of the thugs among your gunmen was also killed. Two brothers of the same parents who are nephews of the DG were also killed in the residence while they slept.

6. Hours after this massacre, you casually claimed credit for the attack carried out by thugs provided with uniform of security personnel and backed up with real police officers in including one J. Caleb of Toto Division on the Nasarawa State Police Command whose confession to the IG in presence of our people taken hostage by your gunmen thoroughly exposed your delibrate diabolical plot to intimidate the SDP by ordering the massacre to cause fear and panic in Kogi East with a view to causing voter's apathy. Sir, at the Press Conference, you regretfully announced that our Campaign DG was not among the four persons killed. This infact betrayed the fact that the aim of that illegal operation that you ordered was to silence our DG and Youth Leader as contained in our statement of Wednesday, November 2.

7. At the Press conference where you took credit for the massacre of Young, promising policemen and two children of same family you had falsely claimed that the invasion was based on intelligence recieved by your command that thugs and arms where been hidden in the residence of our DG. But all the person's you took hostage turned out to be campaign staff, and the arms recovered were official fireams assigned to the young officers your gunmen killed in cold blood.

8. But in Lokoja from where you deployed your rogue force , thugs roam around freely with firearms intimidating people while some of them led by Abdulrahman Gentle, a street thug elevated to Senior Special Assistant by the outlaw Governor of our state, thrice set our state secretariat ablaze. At no time did you ever invite not to talk about arresting any of these thugs.
In Ejule, one Ismaila, a nephew of the APC Kogi East Zonal Chairman twice publicly executed three persons but , you Mr Bethrand Onuoha as Commissioner of Police still allows him to raom free to threaten, intimidate or possibly kill other persons because his homicidal spree benefits Governor Yahaya Bello.

9. However you could deploy a rogue force of about 100 persons and five armoured cars to the residence of our campaign DG to murder young policemen and innocent relations of the DG in cold blood based on some contrived dubious intelligence that there were thugs carrying arms in the residence ? At what point did you discover that thugs bearing arms where such offenders to require such an overwhelming savage force when you are known to indulge and host thugs including Friday Makama Sani who was officially declared wanted by a Federal High Court? And yet you found no thugs nor arms but instead succeeded in massacring innocent citizens?

10. Sir, contrary to the impression you tried to create in your threats that our council statement accusing you of complicity in the insurrection was "direct affront on the authority and integrity of the Nigerian Police Force" perhaps to justify your intention to resort to self help, our allegation was very specific on you, Mr Bethrand Onuoha, as a person who abandoned his professional dictates and descended to the partisan arena. As a matter of fact, our Campaign Council is on record to have repeatedly commended the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mr Olukayode Egbetokun for his professionalism and total neutrality in the course of this elections. We also note that the IGP does not take kindly to the loss of life of any police officer for whatever reason. As a matter of fact he was in Yola, Adamawa State on Tuesday this week to solidarise with the police command over the death of an inspector, Mr Daniel Jacob after an attack on the Yola North Police Headquarters by soldiers. But here in Kogi, you, Mr Bethrand Onuoha, who is supposed to be father to all police personnel, is gleefully taking credit for the murder of your own men. No, sir, we can not use your personal actions that are totally in conflict with policing to impugn on the integrity and authority of the Nigerian Police Force.

10. Still on aiding thuggery, sir, you will recall that on the October 18, the campaign convoy of our candidate Alhaji Muritala Yakubu Ajaka was ambushed between Ajegwu and Idah in an failed assassination attempt by the thug, Friday Makama Sani declared wanted by the Federal High Court. One of the persons taken alive and thought to be a thug confessed to been a serving Assistant Superintendent of Police (ASP) by name of Adamu Sani, who was ordered against his will by your command to join the thugs in their criminal enterprise.

11. Sir, you will recall that on September 30, our campaign rally was attacked by gunmen in Koton-Karfi, during which several of our members were wounded. We identified the gunmen to include Bala Ette and Mohammed Girinya, two notorious thugs of Mr Yahaya Bello. Until today, you have neglected, in fact, outrightly refused to investigate this attack and instead made partisan utterances accusing our candidate and the SDP of promoting violence. Sir, until today, i repeat that not one member of the SDP in Kogi has been implicated in any act of violence or thuggery, yet you accused our candidate of promoting violence! This is in spite of the fact that we scheduled our campaign for Koton-Karfe on that same day and duly informed the Police who gave the permit. The APC did not schedule a rally in Koto-Karfe on that day, but thugs of Mr Yahaya Bello were unleashed on our rally, and you saw nothing wrong with defending such a brigandage

12. With the benefit of hindsight we are now convinced that after we informed your Area Command of the rally you were privy to the attack of the thugs who opened fire on our people, hence you rushed to their defence and tried to create a narrative that our candidate was promoting violence even when there's no record anywhere that a single member of the SDP has ever been implicated in any act of violence or attack on thuggery despite your orchestrated provocation to bait our members into the turf of violence to enable you unleash maximum force on us. Until today, you did nothing to investigate the Koto-Karfe Attack.

13. When on Wednesday known thugs of Mr Yahaya Bello including the notorious Abdulraham Gentle, Bala Ette, Mohsmmed Gegu, ( PA to Bashir Gegu) Sani Karachi and other well notorious Bello's thugs, people we are convinced, you know and can, identify wore SDP T-shirts and fez caps to stage an insurrection at INEC we raised an alarm identifying and disowning them but you Bethrand Unuoha went to indulge them and was cavorting to these criminals until the army arrived and chased them away. Then, without the conscience or fear of God, you issued a statement to claim they were SDP supporters on protest. SDP supporters blocking SDP lawyers from assessing and INEC election materials to help in the prosecution of SDP petition? Even when SDP lawyers applied and were granted leave by the Governorship Election Tribunal? To achieve what end, sir? Sir, doesn't this conspiracy to once again frame the SDP for violence sound hollow to even you, nothwithstanding your unpretentious partisanship?

14. No matter how hard you attempt to deny your complicity, that act of joining Bello and his cabinet of outlaws in referring to known APC thugs staging an insurrection to stop SDP legal team from assessing and inspecting materials as ordered by court totally exposed you as an ostrich burying it's head in the sand and believing that it since it cant see anyone, it is equally invincible to everyone ! Everybody in Lokoja, except you, Mr Bethrand Onuoha knows that the said SDP Tshirts and fez caps are being shared by one Barrister Mohammed Tanko, former Caretaker Chairman of Kogi Local Government at his house in Lokongoma, Lokoja located directly behind former Deputy Governor Philip Salawu's campaign office.

You have elected not to know of the impersonation of SDP supporters by Bello's thugs because you are part of a desperate conspiracy to create a narrative that Will paint SDP and Ajaka in revolting colours in order to undermine our petition in the tribunal.

15. Sir, are you aware that one Jimoh Suleiman, an APC activist addressed that press in Lokoja yesterday claiming credit for the insurrection at INEC and declaring that they don't want any inspection of election materials? Sir hasn't this exposed your dubious identification of the thugs as SDP members while citing the SDP Tshirts shared by Barrister Tanko as justification?

16. As at the time of writing you this letter, we are informed that there was a gun attack on the residence of the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) and the Mr Bello's Information Commissioner whom he, Bello personally accuse of being a falsehood and rumour peddler accused our candidate as the mastermind. Of course we suspect you are part of this narrative but what is shocking is the fact that you while you join in these shenanigans, Kogi under your watch as police commissioner has been reduced to a theater of killings and frequent gun attacks and you are not bothered. Rather you have abandoned your duty of securing our state to unjustly haunting and hunting Ajaka and members of the SDP hierarchy like myself even when you have no record of any of us including our supporters getting involved or implicated in any act of violence or criminality. We challenge you to prove me wrong on this assertion

17. Sir we are also challenging you to prove us wrong by this time professionally and conclusively investigating the latest of the violent attacks in Kogi under your watch rather than resort to issuing threats on visiting unknown consequences on my person as spokesman of the SDP campaign Council for issuing a very justified statement on your indulgence with the thugs of Mr Yahaya Bello. So far, no attacks had been investigated by the Kogi State police command under you. Yet our supporters too numerous to mention have been attacked and their properties worth several millions including our state secretariat had been destroyed.

I remain respectively a law-abiding citizen of Nigeria, Sir.

Faruk Adejoh-Audu
Spokesman and Director, Communications,
Muri/Sam Governorship Campaign Council
Kogi State.