BY SIMON EBEGBULEM & OGIEVA OYENWENSE
BENIN – Executive Director of African Network for Environment and Economic Justice, ANEEJ, Rev. David Ugolor, yesterday, said that the on-going reform in Nigerian prisons and decongestion will be impossible, if the Nigeria Police continue with the culture of illegal detention and framing-up of innocent citizens.
Ugolor, who was detained by the Police over the murder of the Principal Private Secretary to Governor Adams Oshiomhole, Mr. Olaitan Oyerinde, but was released last week following a court judgment, described his detention by the Police as illegal.
Breaking his silence on the issue, yesterday, he said he was framed up by the police.
He said: "My arrest and detention derived from a heinous frame up by the Nigeria Police, which brought one Garuba Usman Maisamari, a man I had never met in my life, to level a baseless criminal allegation against my person. The plot against me was thick and I thank God that today, the truth is out that I know nothing about the false allegation levelled against me by the police and their evil collaborators.
"My arrest and detention, particularly now that the nation is talking about police reforms, further reinforces the need for a genuine reform of the Nigeria Police given their complicity in my ordeal. If I, an environmental and human rights activist, can suffer a frame up by the Police in the 21st century Nigeria and a globalised world, you could imagine what the innocent, ordinary Nigerian citizens are going through on a daily basis in the hands of the police.
"It is shameful and sad that even when the court of competent jurisdiction ordered the Inspector General of Police to release me unconditionally, he flagrantly disobeyed the court order."
Vanguard Nigeria
That is how they do.Most of them should not even be wearing that police uniform.They are far from decent
Welcome to the world of Nigerian police, the most unenlightened security operatives in the world where every TDH can put on a black uniforn in the name of police.