The Nation Newspaper

Tag: prisoner

  • When is a prisoner…

    •When convicted senator Dariye gulps 85.5m as pay behind bars?

    The common man must have be beside himself since the news broke that despite being a prisoner, Senator Joshua Dariye recently received a whopping N85.5m in salaries and allowances, from the Nigerian senate. We recall that Dariye was sentenced to 14 years imprisonment by a High Court in Abuja, a conviction confirmed by the Court of Appeal, albeit for a lesser term of 10 years. To pay Dariye, the National Assembly (NASS) bureaucracy claimed they have not received directive from the Senate President Bukola Saraki to stop the infamy.

    On its part, the senate president excused the travesty on the premise that those who prosecuted Dariye have not yet communicated him about the conviction. According to his spokesman, YusuphOlaniyan, “the senate president has no powers to declare any seat vacant except he is presented with a request. We have to receive official communication from those who prosecuted him. We cannot read a report in the newspapers and go ahead to declare his seat vacant.” So, is the national treasury losing such humongous sum on blame game?

    But an aide to the convicted senator, Mr Christopher John, expressed a different perspective to the drama. He said: “(Dariye) has already appealed the case; so he is still a senator pending the decision of the Supreme Court.” No, Mr John, Dariye is a convict, until his conviction is set aside. To argue otherwise is to turn logic on its head. While he has a chance of acquittal, until that is done, he serves his sentence. That is why if the sentence is confirmed at the Supreme Court, the years he has spent before the final decision will count.

    Albeit, because he is lawfully a prisoner, he cannot sue for damages for the years in jail, should the Supreme Court acquit him.So, on what basis is the senate leadership prevaricating on protecting the resources of the state? Should the sentence hold at the Supreme Court, how would the NASS bureaucracy retire to the auditor monies paid to Dariye, when his senate membership in fact ended from the date of his conviction?

    Perhaps,because the political elites run the country haphazardly without consequences, there will be no audit query to answer on this grave anomaly. Otherwise how could those responsible courageously take the risk of making such a payment, when caution should ordinarily be the watch word? But if the senate leadership who have unlawfully padded their allowances, opt to run the senate as an assembly of affection, regardless of how Nigerians feel, shouldn’t citizens’ advocacy demand accountability from those responsible for wasting their common patrimony?

    We urge Nigerians to demand for action from those they elected into government. The Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) should approach the court to determine the propriety of paying a senator convicted by the courts and serving his sentence in prison.Perhaps the AGF would test whether by the provision of section 68(1)(b) of the 1999 constitution (as amended) the predicament of Dariye is not one of the “other circumstance” envisaged to cause a member of the senate to vacate his seat?

    Of course, we are aware that section 66(2)provides a temporary relief from disqualification for a person seeking to be elected into the membership of the NASS, whereas a convict, he has an appeal pending; but that section may not have envisaged a serving senator being convicted and enjoying the trappings of office, while in prison. Moreover,where is the moral standing of a senate, when its hallowed chambers harbour a convict as standing member? Again, does our democracy not ring hollow if a senator can serve his term from prison?

  • Kuje’s very important prisoner

    •It’s a story the Inspector-General of Police and prison authorities should show interest in

    The media report of a prison inmate, one Mr.Ifeanyi Ezenwa, who parades Abuja with armed prison escorts, even though he is also wanted by the police, runs like a block buster movie. Mr Ezenwa, alias Igwe, or Dr Sam Attah, and probably several other pseudo names, depending on the role play, has been painting Abuja red while a prisoner in the Kuje Maximum Prison. We demand that administrative and criminal indictment be meted to all the prison officials involved in this show of shame.

    According to the report, Ezenwa thrusts himself before unsuspecting victims as a wealthy man, more so as many see the armed prison escorts he parades, which they cannot differentiate from mobile policemen, as evidence of the Nigerian big man posture. Indeed, one of his accomplices, Dalhatu Yahaya, who helped him to dupe a seller of medical equipment, in Abuja, thought he was a traditional ruler, with deep bank account, from where he doles out bank alerts.

    Unfortunately, the bank alerts are fake. One of his modus operandi is to show off at a store as a wealthy man, after which he will call the customer’s number to demand for expensive items. On this tactics, when the cost of the item is settled, he will send a false bank alert, crediting the unsuspecting victim with the cost of the item. At other times, he will send his assistants to go forward to make a demand, while he calls on phone to agree on the cost, after which the alert is sent.

    Once the alert is received, the unsuspecting customer willingly gives up the item to Ezenwa’s forward men. In one reported instance, Ezenwa defrauded Elizade Motor Company of a Toyota Hilux van, using this tactics. The essence of giving these details is to serve as a warning signal to the general public, for there are several ‘Ezenwas’, wreaking havoc, across the country.

    But also very intriguing is the audacity of the Kuje Prison officials who are involved in this scandalous abuse of our nation’s criminal justice system. Ezenwa’s accomplices like him, hold our nation and its processes in complete contempt. Not just that they have made a mockery of Ezenwa’s judicial custody by allowing him free reign in and outside the prisons, they provide him armed escorts to dupe people; so they are accomplices to the crimes he committed.

    It is his capacity to ride roughshod over the system that gave Ezenwa the audacity to plan more criminality right from the prison. The same with his fellow inmates and the prison wardens. In one gripping incident as reported by the Saturday Sun Newspaper, Ezenwa’s accomplice, Yahaya, recalled how he was introduced to Ezenwa by his friend, Isha Imam Geja, who was serving as judge at an Upper Sharia Court.

    It was the money duped a store owner that they used to bail Geja. Having succeeded, Yahaya was told the truth, and then enlisted by Geja, working in concert with Ezenwa, for a more devastating fraud. It was even reported that Ezenwa lives like a king in Kuje prisons and because he is respected, the prison warders allow him to go out from the prison and come in, when he wants, with armed escorts.

    While we commend the police team led by Assistant Commissioner of Police Abbah Kyari, for busting this notorious gang, we want a fuller investigation to rein in all the accomplices. Nigerians expect that the Inspector-General of Police, the Controller-General of Prisons and the Office of the Attorney-General of the Federation, will unite to ensure that this ignoble conduct is not swept under the carpet.

  • Prisoner bags 170 years jail term for N 12.3m fraud

    Prisoner bags 170 years jail term for N 12.3m fraud

    A prison inmate was yesterday at a Lagos State High Court sentenced to 170 years imprisonment for defrauding a bank manager of N12.3million.
    He will, however, spend 18 years as the sentences will run concurrently.
    The Economic and Financial Crime Commissions (EFCC) arraigned Ikechuwu Ogbu and Ibebugbu Chuks before Justice Lateefa Okunnu on June 10, 2011 for obtaining money by false and stealing.
    The EFCC said the defendants orchestrated and defrauded Patrick Edet Chukwu, a branch Manager of Bank PHB now Keystone Bank, of N12.3 million under false pretences while serving a jail term in Kirikiri for another fraud related offence.
    Delivering judgment yesterday, Justice Okunnu found Ogbu guilty of all the charges against him.
    The judge discharged Chuks, saying the prosecutor failed to prove the charges against him beyond reasonable doubt.
    She said there was nothing to show that he knew anything about the money sent to his account.
    “I am of the view that the prosecution failed to prove his case against the second defendant because there was no direct evidence against him,” the judge held.
    Justice Okunnu sentenced Ogbu to 18 years imprisonment on counts two to 10 and eight years on count one.
    The judge blamed the Maximum Security Prison officials for aiding the prisoner to open a bank account and permitting him to wear mufti.
    She pointed out that the convict was allowed to use several mobile phones to call the complainant in order to defraud him.
    The judge said: “According to the witness statements of the EFCC operatives and the evidence before the court, I believe that the first defendant had on various occasions collected about N12 million from the complainant.”
    The defendant’s counsel Olanrewaju Ajanaku, pleaded with the court to temper justice with mercy, saying his client is now remorseful.
    Ajanaku added: “My Lord, the defendant’s wife died two years ago, I pray my lord to temper justice with mercy.”
    EFCC counsel Nnaemeka Omewa said: “The defendant had just spent just two years of his serving term and he committed another heinous crime. How much more would he commit if he is allowed to live in the society.  I urge my Lord to pass the maximum judgement on the defendant”.

  • Freedom for 94-year-old prisoner

    Freedom for 94-year-old prisoner

    In just six years, Pa Canice Egbunanne would have marked his 100th birthday in prison if he lived that long. Imo State Governor Rochas Okorocha’s prerogative of mercy saved the nonagenarian from making such negative history. He walked out of his cell aged 94 accompanied by prison staff.

    Still, Pa Egbunanne remained a newsmaker. His age and grey beard kept tongues wagging. What was offence? Why was he not set free before now?

    How long he served his term was not disclosed, but he and 15 other inmates of the Owerri Prison were pardoned by the governor during his visit to the facility on the anniversary of Nigeria’s Independence Day.

    Frail and bent over, with a distant hollow look that betrays his inner thought, Pa Egbunanne, probably the oldest prisoner in Nigeria, cut the figure of a man that had resigned to fate.

    A prison official who didn’t want his name in print,  said Egbunanne was respected as a father by fellow inmates and prison officials alike.

    Prodded further on the circumstances that brought the nonagenarian to prison, the official declined further information, claiming that it was against the code of the service to disclose ‘certified’ information about inmates.

    Speaking barely above whispers, Egbunanne, who was looked  indifferent to his new found freedom, thanked the state governor and the prison officials for their kindness, adding that he never dreamt of coming out alive.

    Although he was not allowed to disclose the crime that brought him to prison by the prison officials, he said his incarceration has transformed him into a better citizen, assuring that henceforth, he would keep away from trouble and all forms of criminality.

    Meanwhile, the journey to freedom began for Egbunanne and 15 other inmates, including two on death row, with the Independence Day announcement by Governor Okorocha, which granted them instant pardon in line with his prerogative of mercy.

    This was the first time in 10 years that serving prisoners were granted pardon in the state. The governor had acted on the recommendations of the Advisory Council on Prerogative of Mercy, which he had earlier set up with the Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Chief Chukwuma–Machukwu Umeh (SAN) as chairman.

    Eleven out of the 15 pardoned prisoners were imprisoned for non-capital offences and had almost served out their terms, and have less than six months left to regain freedom.

    Walking out of the prison after perfecting their paper works, two weeks later, the 16 pardoned inmates praised Governor Okorocha for his compassion.

    While signing their Bond of Good Conduct, they expressed joy that they were given an opportunity to re-unite with their families and pledged to be of good conduct in the society.

    Addressing the beneficiaries,  chairman of the Committee on Prerogative of Mercy and Attorney-General of the State, Chief Umeh who was represented by the Secretary of the Committee, Mr. Jude Nwokonkwo said the exercise was to properly document the process of their release and ensure that appropriate records were kept.

    He said the governor’s decision to free the prisoners was borne out of his desire to extend generosity of spirit to them as was recommended by the committee, even as he warned the beneficiaries to stay away from all forms of criminal tendencies as they are integrated back into the society.

    The Attorney-General assured them that the state government had concluded plans to assist in their rehabilitation.

    The Controller, Imo State Prison Command, Mr. Ifeanyi Amaliri said the occasion was to formalise the release of the 16 inmates who were pardoned.

    He commended the Imo State government for its magnanimity, even as he enjoined the freed inmates to refrain from crime.

    Mr Amaliri said: “Always avoid conflict with the law and things that will bring you back into the prison.  Don’t say the prison is full and can’t admit you.”

    One of the beneficiaries, Mr. Austin Chukwuemeka who was serving life imprisonment out of which he had spent 17 years, wrote a book while in prison. The book was entitled Stay Afloat in Righteousness while in Prison.

    He said the news of his pardon came to him as a shock.

    “I was shocked when I was told that I have been pardoned by the governor. It was not my own making, but I am convinced that God saved me from the jaws of death for a greater assignment.

    “My confinement has proved to be a blessing because it has brought me closer to God and I will serve Him all the days of my life.”

    Another beneficiary, Mr. Chinedu Ogbonnaya also serving life imprisonment but had spent 16 years said his vision is to carry out enlightenment campaign to educate youths on the consequences of crime.

    He advocated the teaching of Nigerian Constitution in all institutions of learning to keep the youth abreast of the dangers of crime.

  • Senegal: Wade says he is a ‘political prisoner’

    The flamboyant son of Senegal’s ex-President Abdoulaye Wade has called himself a “political prisoner” during his first appearance at a special court trying him on corruption charges.  Karim Wade is accused of embezzling about $238m (£140m), which he denies.

    Senegal’s League of Human Rights (LHR) said the trial would not be fair as it required him to prove his innocence, rather than the prosecution his guilt.  He was arrested in April 2013, a year after his father’s defeat in elections.  ‘Minister of earth and sky’

    Karim Wade was influential in the former government, holding several ministerial posts simultaneously, including minister for infrastructure and air transportation.

    His large portfolio led to him being dubbed “the minister of the earth and the sky” and he was alleged to have acquired several foreign firms by illicit means.

     

  • My regrets, by prisoner who is to face firing squad

    A death row prisoner in Edo State, ThankGod Ebohs, whose execution was delayed on Monday, has said his only regret was his inability to see the three children delivered to him by three women.

    He is to die by firing squad but his execution was delayed because the Robbery and Firearms Tribunal was abolished in Edo State in 1999.

    Ebohs spoke to reporters in 2010 inside the Benin Prisons when he joined other inmates to enrol in an educational facility provided for inmates by a philanthropist, Patrick Eholor.

    Four death row prisoners- Chima Ejiofor, Daniel Nsofor, Osarenmwinda Aiguokhan and Richard Igagu- were executed by officials of the Nigeria Prison Services after a High Court ruling against their appeal.

    Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice Henry Idahagbon said Ebohs was convicted in Kaduna by a Robbery and Firearms Tribunal for robbery, rape and murder.

    Idahagbon told reporters that Ebohs robbed a family, raped the wife and forced a bottle into his victim, which led to her death.

    Ejiofor killed a child delivered to him out of wedlock by a Bini woman .

    The commissioner said: “Chima was a spare parts dealer in Benin. He impregnated an Edo woman and had a child.

    “Several years later, he went back to his village and married an Ibo woman. During Christmas, he invited the child to spend the holiday with him.

    “When the child came, he killed him, saying he does not want to have a child out of wedlock.”

    Osarenmwinda was said to have killed his victim and dismembered the body, which he buried in several places to avoid detection.

    Idahagbon advised those against death penalty to channel their grievances to the National Assembly for an amendment of the law on murder and robbery.

    He said: “These are gory murders carried out by hardened criminals. If a person is convicted for robbery, the only thing the judge can give is the death penalty.”

    Ebohs said he chose to learn to broaden his knowledge.

    He said he had three children from various mothers but had not seen them since he was incarcerated.

    “My parents are dead. Nobody has ever visited me. I am a musician. I have three children from various women.

    “I have not seen any of them and I don’t know their whereabouts.”

    He said it was the military decree that anybody found with arms and robbery is sentenced to death.

    On why Ebohs was not executed, Idahagbon said the law prescribed the methodology of the killing and that no other method could be used as the prison has only the hangman’s noose.

     

  • ‘My fiancé was a prisoner when I fell in love with him, but I didn’t know he was jailed for armed robbery’

    ‘My fiancé was a prisoner when I fell in love with him, but I didn’t know he was jailed for armed robbery’

    THE saying that every day is for the thief but one day for the owner found expression in Anambra State recently with the arrest of some people suspected to be involved in car snatching.

    One of the suspects arrested by men of the State Security Service (SSS) was 29-year-old Ukamaka Okafor, a native of Ijinike, Enugu State. Her arrest, she said, was all like a scene in a Nollywood movie. Amid tears, she confessed that she was lured from her fast food business on Presidential Road, Enugu into armed robbery by her fiance who was in jail over the same crime.

    The dark complexioned lady was arrested by the SSS with two other suspects, Ugochukwu Okeke, a 38-year-old native of Osu village in Umunachi, and Isah Yusuf who hails from Maraban Jos in Kaduna State.

    Okeke, who claimed to have worked as a driver before he had a squabble with his boss and had also worked as a carpenter, was nabbed by SSS men at Abatete, Idemili North Local Government Area, Anambra State on April 3, with the help of Abatete vigilance group.

    He was said to have been involved in the snatching a red Toyota Highlander jeep with Anambra registration number HTE 335 AA. The said vehicle was said to belong to a South African-based prophetess, Victoria Nkiru Onuorah and was snatched from her at gunpoint on April 1, 2013 at Ichida, Anaocha Local Government Area.

    However, investigation into how the gang intended to dispose of the vehicle took operatives of the command to Kaduna where Isah Yusuf (26) was also arrested. According to the Anambra State Director of (SSS), Mr. Alex Okeiyi, Yusuf was on standby to take the vehicle to one Alhaji Dogo in Sokoto.

    According to Okeiyi, on getting to Sokoto, the said Alhaji was nowhere to be found. But enquiries made by the SSS revealed that members of his syndicate were responsible for taking such cars to Niger Republic where they are sold.

    Okeiyi said the operatives returned to Enugu and called Ukamaka Okafor, who already had an arrangement with her prisoner fiance, Nonso Nwude, to collect the proceeds from the sale of the vehicle. Unknown to her, the people that had called her were security operatives. They arrested her as soon as she got to the location.

    Narrating her plight to The Nation, Ukamaka, who sobbed continuously, said she never knew that her fiancé was an armed robber. But she admitted that she was the one who smuggled a mobile phone and SIM card to Nwude sometime in August 2012.

    The handset and SIM card, she said, were hidden in some raw rice she sent to Nwude in prison.

    She said: “On April 12, I was cooking in my shop when my fiancé sent me a text message from prison that I should rush to Shoprite to see the person who would give me money to prosecute my case. I left what I was doing and rushed to the site where I was arrested.

    “My mother had warned me against marrying somebody who was in prison. It was a friend called Njideka who linked me with Nonso (Nwude) and his father in March 2012 after narrating what led him to prison. From there, I started sending him food in prison before this incident.”

    Another suspected member of the syndicate, Ugochukwu Okeke, said he was lured into the gang by a friend he met at a mechanic workshop in February, 2012. Before then, he had been in prison custody for eight months before he was granted amnesty by the Chief Judge of Anambra State in 2011.

    He said: “As I was repairing my Mercedes Benz car, which I bought for N100,000 given to me by my wife when I came out of prison, one man walked in and we started talking. He introduced himself as Oga Uche. From there, one thing led to another.”

    The same Oga Uche had sold a rickety Honda Accord car to Okeke for N65,000; a development he said helped to cement their relationship.

    “On Good Friday, he called me again and said he had a Camry car he wanted to sell for N800,000. I told him that I did not have money, but he said he would introduce me into another business.

    “When he came around, he said we should hang out. He asked whether I could drive well and I said yes. We went out and saw this jeep and he said we should pursue it. We followed the jeep and snatched it from the woman at gunpoint and I drove it to my house.

    “Before I was arrested, we had arranged how to dispose it for N1.2 million, I am now regretting my action.”

    Yusuf said he was a brother-in-law to Alhaji Dogo, the alleged receiver of the goods stolen by the syndicate. Speaking in Hausa with the aid of an interpreter, Yusuf said: “I was at home when Alhaji Dogo called me on the phone, because he is marrying my sister. He told me that a visitor was coming.

    “He told me that the visitor’s money had finished and that I should give them money at the hotel. On getting to the hotel, I did not see anybody. After waiting till evening, l left. But the following day, Alhaji called me that the visitor had arrived and that I should meet him at the car wash to collect some money.

    “He described the car to me, but when I went there, I was arrested by SSS men. This is my first time in this business.”

    But it was not only the alleged car snatchers that were arrested. Two other persons, Emmanuel Molokwu (21) from Umuota Udoaraba in Obosi community and Stanley Ndefo (20) from Umuota village in the same Obosi were also arrested by SSS operatives for armed robbery.

    They were apprehended by the security operatives at Enugu-Agidi in Njikoka Local Government Area, Anambra State on April 6 after snatching a woman’s handbag at gunpoint close to UNIZIK Junction in Awka.

    The suspects, according to Okeiyi, were intercepted by his men as they rode on a carter motorcycle with registration number VW 836 ENU clutching a brown female bag. He said in the course of the interception, the suspects abandoned their motorcycle and fled. They also abandoned a locally made double barrel pistol with six rounds of live ammunition.”

    However, the command succeeded in tracing the owner of the bag, Jacinta Oge Onukaigbo, a civil servant.

    In their confessions, the suspects told The Nation that they were a disgrace to their parents and communit

    Stammering Molokwu said: “My parents do not know my whereabouts till now, and I am sorry for letting them down. Nobody expected this from me. If I come out of this, I will never try it again.”

    He said it was his partner, Stanley Ndefo, who lured him into armed robbery after some drinking spree at a beer parlour in Obosi. He said Ndefo took him to an abandoned house and showed him a wrapped gun for the operation

    But Ndefo denied introducing Molokwu to robbery, adding that both of them agreed to delve into the trade. He said he acquired the gun during the war between Obosi and Nkpor a couple of years back, having picked it up from the gutter.

    He said his initial intention was not to use the gun for robbery but to sell it and get enough money to take him back to Abuja where he was working as a taxi driver.

    “I am a disgrace to my family, especially my mother. I am now born again. I will never indulge in such a thing again,” he said.