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By Evelyn Usman
Twenty–eight–year–old Ebere Okonkwo, has raised the alarm over the disappearance of her husband, Dubuem Okonkwo, from the custody of the Police in Anambra State.
Her husband who is a member of the Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria, TOAN Awka branch, Anambra State, was arrested at Unizik junction park, on March 15, 2022, over an undisclosed offence.
She stated that he was thereafter, paraded by the Commissioner of Police, Anambra State Police Command, CP Echen Echen, at Command Headquarters Awka, without any explanation by the command of his offence.
Apprehension, according to her, set in, as she could no longer reach her 48-year-old husband after the parade. The mother of one, therefore, called on the Inspector-General of Police, IGP Alkali Baba, the Minister of Women Affairs and Social Development, Pauline Tallen and other concerned Nigerians to prevail on CP Echen to disclose the whereabouts of her husband.
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According to her: “ Since his disappearance, we have been referred from one Police formation to another. I don’t know the crime he has committed. I should have the right to see him and at least hear from him. If the Police have killed him, they should let the family and at least give his body to us for burial since they feel we are nobody.
” My family has gone to the State Command Headquarters where he was paraded and people who saw him told us that my husband was raising up his hands and asked what his offence was and why he was paraded for a crime he did not commit, but he was shouted down by some policemen on the parade ground.
“My daughter and I are on our knees begging President Buhari, IGP Usman Akali Baba, and other well-meaning Nigerians, to prevail on the Anambra State Police command to bring our breadwinner back”.
Describing the matter as a complicated one, she said her husband’s name was among the suspects mentioned in the press statement issued by the Anambra state Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga.
The statement by the command’s image maker informed that the Police stormed Unizik on March 15, 2022, upon receiving information that a cult group had launched an attack on a vigilante group at miracle junction, Ifite, Awka. The statement further stated that the leader of the cult group was killed in the process while a cache of weapons, out of which two AK 47 riffles belonging to two policemen that were murdered last December, were recovered.
When contacted, the spokesman for the Anambra State Police Command, DSP Tochukwu Ikenga, told Vanguard to send him a text because he was in a radio programme. But he was yet to send his reaction as of the time of writing this report.
