Mrs. Ruth Inobi Adaji has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun, accusing policemen of X Squad, FCID, Alagbon, Lagos, of perpetrating impunity, lawlessness and illegality against defenceless and innocent citizens, including herself.
In the petition, she narrated her ugly experiences in the hands of the operatives and urged the IGP to rein in his officers.
She said: “Sometime last year (2022), my brother, Ubenyi Ochoche, a medical doctor and a cryptocurrency trader, visited me in my residence at Festac Town, Lagos. He said he came to attend a cryptocurrency seminar where he was billed to deliver a paper.
“On the morning of the event, he ordered an Uber ride and a lady driver later identified as Ms Chichi Tonia showed up. Pleasantly surprised to see a fellow woman as an Uber driver, I exchanged some pleasantries with her before she left on the trip with my brother. That was all I did. Nothing more.
“Sometime in August 2022, months after my brother returned to his place of residence in Abuja, I heard a knock on my gate. After interrogation, I opened my gate and while trying to recognise the face standing before me, Ms Tonia Chichi quickly introduced herself as the lady Uber that picked my brother from here last time and that she came to tell me what transpired between her and my brother after that trip.
“Not knowing what was in the offing, I invited her in and gave her a listening ear. After she said she had to come down to my place since he refused to give her my number and she knew where she picked him from, so I can help her talk to him to get things resolved between them.
“She informed me that she had given N3,336,000 to my brother to invest for her and pleaded with me to appeal to my brother to give her back the money. That was the first time I heard about any money changing hands between them.
” She didn’t inform me before giving my brother money, since there was no form of communication whatsoever after that first Uber ride with my brother and my brother, on his part, made no mention of it to me.
“After hearing from her, I called my brother immediately in her presence and he confirmed receiving money from her due to her pressure to join the cryptocurrency trade.
“He expressed his displeasure over her coming to my place to bother me on this issue between them, which wasn’t my business, coupled with the fact that he didn’t want to add to my stress due to my medical conditions and that he had begged her on this note not to reach me, the reason he refused to hand her my mobile number.
“He explained further that she had requested and received N710,000, equivalent of $1,000 (one thousand dollars) and other transfers to her wallet amounting to $400 (four hundred dollars).
“He informed me that the Exchange FTX founded by Sam Bankman-Fried had collapsed and he lost all his investment, including hers. He promised to pay back her money as soon as he could. And that had been his plea to her.
“I gave her my mobile number as requested and kept mediating between her and my brother until she started threatening to deal with me if I failed to get my brother to pay her. Over time, the threats intensified and took a frightening dimension.
“On one call, she promised to rope me in and deal with me. Even at that, I kept speaking to my brother who confided in me that they had agreed on a specified time for payment.
“Sometime in March this year, she called me wanting to know if I was at home. I said I was and agreed for her to come around as she requested for my audience. She informed me that she was at my gate. I opened the gate and policemen led by one Inspector James Owunebe, a lady police, and an armed uniformed policeman who accompanied them charged into my house and placed me under arrest.
“They accused me of conspiracy to defraud Tonia Chichi. I protested vehemently against the accusation. I told them I wasn’t aware of the transaction and did not participate in it. I informed them of my health condition and pleaded with them to let me report to their station the next day.
“But this was to no avail as I was marched to Festac police station when my close’s chairman made an observation of them not passing through due process. I was moved from there to Alagbon that night since the officer on seat then gave them the go-ahead as Owunebe put it to my lawyer, who was insistent on the issue of my health and leaving my little children alone in the house.
“Notwithstanding, they forcefully removed me from there and detained me at Alagbon police station until I was bailed by my estate chairman, Mr. Dele Jekami, and kept reporting at the station for days as dictated by the police after my bail, until my brother came to the station with his lawyer, Mr. Kurtis Adigba.
“Mr. Ubenyi Ochoche wrote a statement before the police and stated emphatically that I had no role in the transaction between them. He wondered why the police did not reach out to him on the issue. He expressed shock that his sister was arrested by proxy. Mr. Ochoche restated his intentions to pay Tonia Chichi and paid another N400,000 (four hundred thousand naira) at the police station. He promised to pay the balance in monthly instalments of N400,000. He was released to his lawyer.
“Sometime in July, Tonia brought policemen to my close and, this time, they arrested my estate chairman, Dele Jekami, and detained him. They insisted he must take me to the station before he could be released. I had to forgo my hospital appointment and my husband took me to Alagbon police station before Dele Jekami was released.
“My husband was compelled to write an undertaking to produce my brother, Ubenyi Ochoche, before I could be let off the hook and this is what I had complied with them and done in the past. He agreed because I was in a bad shape.
“Thereafter, the threats of my arrest and detention intensified by Insp. James Owunebe, Insp. Victor Gogoh, Olufunke Esther Okerinde and SP Abdul Bologi. This was in spite of the fact that I had been cleared by the accused person. I started suffering from anxiety disorder because of the barrage of threats and had a breakdown from their office from where I was taken to hospital almost dead and was hospitalised for days before going to my husband’s station to continue my treatment.
“In September after my return, they started their moves on me again. On that account, my husband contacted a lawyer, Kurtis Adigba, to sue the police and seek to enforce my fundamental rights. The lawyer suggested that it was necessary to write a petition on the issue to the AIG in charge of Alagbon first.
“He wrote a petition dated September 14 to the AIG. The petition was approved by the AIG and the lawyer was invited by Inspector Akweje Oguns. The lawyer met with him and one Esther Olufunke Okerinde (alias Elizabeth), a senior police officer.
“They demanded that the lawyer bring me to the station to answer to the petition and pay mobilisation. He informed them that I was unwell and would report as soon as my health improved. That was on October 16.
“On October 17, a day after, policemen (Esther Olufunke and Victor Gogoh) accompanied by Tonia Chichi, stormed my house and arrested me, with the claim that they got the directive via a call from the AIG in Abuja, through their boss, SP Bologi, to do so. When I informed them that I was sick and won’t be able to follow them since it was already late in the evening and I was also alone with my little children, they called SP Abdul Bologi who insisted I must be brought to him, dead or alive in handcuffs and he further said to me it was better I died.
“My lawyer, Mr. Oluwole Kehinde, called and pleaded with them to let him bring me to the station the next day; they refused. They went and mobilised officers from Festac police station where I was forcefully taken to and push into Chichi’s car from there to Alagbon, in handcuffs, after I slumped.
“On arrival at Alagbon, I was rushed to the police hospital at Falomo as I begged for my life. These cohorts, Insp. Victor Gogoh, Tonia Chichi and SP Abdul Bologi at that point went further to say that I was pretending and that even if anything happens to me and I die, they know what to write and nobody will be able to do anything to the police.
“There, at Falomo Police Hospital, I was handcuffed outside in mosquito-infested space. I pleaded to be allowed to use the restroom and was denied by SP Abdul Bologi, Insp. Victor Gogoh and the doctors and nurses on night duty. I was abandoned and I peed on my body throughout that night, even with all my plea for help.
“I was subjected to vile insults by Bologi, Victor, Chichi, nurses, workers/cleaners on duty and even some patients in the emergency ward who believed the story told by the police about me. They called me unprintable names. SP Abdul Bologi said if I died nothing would happen, he knows what to write.
“I was returned to the emergency ward when the people on morning shift started coming, and was injected with baby paracetamol injection as I was groaning in pain. This I got to know about when one of the nurses on night duty wanted to give me the remaining injection left before they could take me to cell from the hospital on SP Bologi’s insistence. She said this is not the right dosage so I should just try and take the paracetamol tablet gotten by the police with other prescriptions written by the doctor that granted them my discharge.
“On that day, which was the second day after my arrest, I was discharged after they got a doctor to write a concocted report that I was only suffering from ulcer and fit to stand trial. They got a doctor to sign my discharge and took me from the hospital in the night after a nurse on morning duty that insisted on them writing an undertaking, if they insist on taking me in the state she saw me, had left after her shift.
“They said I would be charged to court, but they refused to take the case to court but rather put me in a cell where they awaited my death in anticipation. It was a rough night for me and everyone in the cell zone as I groaned in pain all through the night till the next day without any attention from the cell guards, since they said they needed directive from my IPO who they claimed was unreachable, till the next evening.
“My husband came in from his station and after the intervention of the PPRO, who had been notified about my case by some journalists, I was released but not before my husband was made to pay my hospital bills of N45,000 on the insistence of SP Abdul Bologi. And that he had to produce the accused. After my release, I was taken straight to the hospital by my husband, where I was admitted and have been receiving medical attention.
“I need to also state that in the petition written by Tonia Chichi, she claimed that she gave my brother (the accused) N10,000,000. When my brother confronted her at the station with proofs of transfer, she buckled and said policemen coached her to increase the amount so that it can come within their purview of operation and Insp. Victor Gogoh affirmed to this claim. This was before the policemen. No one challenged her.
“During my last arrest on Tuesday, 17th October 2023, Ms Chichi Tonia also mentioned in the car on our way to Alagbon when they were discussing how I needed to be dealt with, that ‘if not that Oga notified her of our plan, we were doing everything for her to lose her money and that I needed to be dealt with as he has helped her to initiate my arrest using the office of the AIG Abuja where they said a call came from, for my arrest. All these, for a transaction I knew nothing about.
“My brother (the accused) has been in touch with Insp. James Owunebe so many times. He has a call log to show but they did not invite him to come to Lagos. All they did was asked him to pay the money.
“I am their soft target for exploitation and extortion. I’m appealing to the IGP to bring these wicked and evil men in uniform to justice. They have shown by actions and conducts that they do not deserve the trust given to them by the Nigerian Police to execute their duties accordingly to the citizenry. No citizen deserves to be treated so inhumanely as I have been treated by SP Abdul Bologi and his gang of evil officers.
“I have instructed my lawyers to sue the police and I’m writing you for you to know that if anything happens to me, hold SP Abdul Bologi, Esther Olufunke Okerinde (alias Elizabeth), James Owunebe, Victor Gogoh and Chichi Tonia responsible.”
Spokesperson of FCID, ASP Aminat Mayegun, while reacting to the allegations by the petitioner, Mrs. Ruth Inobu Adaji, concerning the reported maltreatment and unlawful detention, said she is encouraged to visit the PPRO office at Alagbon to present her claims.
