DPA News

If you just read the apology of Senator Abbo for his video-recorded assault on a woman, you need to know that apologizing was not on the Senator's plan initially.  He had wanted to do what a typical abuser does  -  deny, deny, deny, and then attack the victim again. But the leader of PDP,  his political party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had a better understanding of the corrosive effect of such damaging video on a minority party that is actively seeking for justice. The political ramifications of the conduct of Senator Abbo might not have been initially obvious. But on a second look, it is indeed a dynamite at this point in time against the PDP party.  Political parties are made of politicians, human beings, whose individual controversies may be attributed to their parties.  The APC, the ruling party, has been under attack for all kind of shenanigans, from alleged election rigging to colluding with the electoral body to deny the existence of servers used in collating election results and the highly controversial land grab for cattle rearers. With the APC constantly depicted as wild and lawless and the PDP being seen as the harmless victim,  a viral video of a PDP Senator viciously assaulting a defenseless woman could be a dramatic game changer.  Also, known PDP Senators like Senator Melaye, Senator Ekweremadu and Senator Saraki were recently known to have complained of being persecuted by the police. All that will be seen as the table turning if a PDP Senator is now the one that the police are hesitating to arrest in face of a mountain of evidence of a crime.  The people were left wondering how PDP politicians would react now that the table turned. Human beings hate hypocrisy and the video tended to reveal a hypocrisy that might badly damage the PDP. Obviously, Senator Abbo did not realize this.  He seems too naive, too self-absorbed and too daft to grasp the ramifications of his conduct.  This lack of depth is seen in Senator Abbo's initial line of defence as seen in the statement he gave to the press before he was forced to apologize.   Senator Abbo first lied and claimed to have also been physically assaulted in the incident but that a part of the video was edited out. He said on Channels Television on Wednesday:   “Where I had to call an ambulance and police to come to the scene and it got out of hand I was also assaulted. We will soon release an official statement to the viral video which happened before I became a senator where my younger sister was beaten to a pulp in a shop and I was called upon there".   In a gesture of a counterattack, he said he would be demanding the release of the full recording. According to him, "This is a political season and now I am now a politician, before I was not a politician but now the reality of the fact is that I am now a politician and politicians are not people who are liked, they exhume things of 20 years and they hang it on their neck now”. Such a bold-faced blackmail against the people infuriated many.   He then tried to intimidate with the following words: "As I said before we will release a robust response to everything, and we will also ask for the entire video to be released since they have the video. We will seat and discuss the video. Just to be clear that video was taken long before now and it was released just as this point.”   However,  more experienced PDP leaders knew they had to avoid the spread of the damage. First,  Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was the first PDP figure to publicly call for the arrest of Senator Abbo. It was a good move to distance PDP from the Senator's debacle.  Then came the moves by Atiku. The presidential candidate of the PDP and its de facto national leader, called Senator Abbo and advised him (it was probably an order) to publicly apologize unconditionally. Atiku did more than that.  He also called the party machinery to initiate disciplinary process against the Senator and he urged the police to ensure that the law was enforced.   These were the events that caused the Senator to abandon his grandstanding and to apologize. He was even reported to have wept as a show of remorse. The only place the leaders of the PDP could have done more was in assigning an adult or experienced professional to the Senator to help him draft a more effective apology. Allowing him to draft his apology without help was not the best.  The poorly written apology he gave may be subject of further attacks, which risks prolonging a matter they would rather see behind them.

If you just read the apology of Senator Abbo for his video-recorded assault on a woman, you need to know that apologizing was not on the Senator's plan initially.  He had wanted to do what a typical abuser does  -  deny, deny, deny, and then attack the victim again. But the leader of PDP,  his political party, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, had a better understanding of the corrosive effect of such damaging video on a minority party that is actively seeking for justice. The political ramifications of the conduct of Senator Abbo might not have been initially obvious. But on a second look, it is indeed a dynamite at this point in time against the PDP party.  Political parties are made of politicians, human beings, whose individual controversies may be attributed to their parties.  The APC, the ruling party, has been under attack for all kind of shenanigans, from alleged election rigging to colluding with the electoral body to deny the existence of servers used in collating election results and the highly controversial land grab for cattle rearers. With the APC constantly depicted as wild and lawless and the PDP being seen as the harmless victim,  a viral video of a PDP Senator viciously assaulting a defenseless woman could be a dramatic game changer.  Also, known PDP Senators like Senator Melaye, Senator Ekweremadu and Senator Saraki were recently known to have complained of being persecuted by the police. All that will be seen as the table turning if a PDP Senator is now the one that the police are hesitating to arrest in face of a mountain of evidence of a crime.  The people were left wondering how PDP politicians would react now that the table turned. Human beings hate hypocrisy and the video tended to reveal a hypocrisy that might badly damage the PDP. Obviously, Senator Abbo did not realize this.  He seems too naive, too self-absorbed and too daft to grasp the ramifications of his conduct.  This lack of depth is seen in Senator Abbo's initial line of defence as seen in the statement he gave to the press before he was forced to apologize.   Senator Abbo first lied and claimed to have also been physically assaulted in the incident but that a part of the video was edited out. He said on Channels Television on Wednesday:   “Where I had to call an ambulance and police to come to the scene and it got out of hand I was also assaulted. We will soon release an official statement to the viral video which happened before I became a senator where my younger sister was beaten to a pulp in a shop and I was called upon there".   In a gesture of a counterattack, he said he would be demanding the release of the full recording. According to him, "This is a political season and now I am now a politician, before I was not a politician but now the reality of the fact is that I am now a politician and politicians are not people who are liked, they exhume things of 20 years and they hang it on their neck now”. Such a bold-faced blackmail against the people infuriated many.   He then tried to intimidate with the following words: "As I said before we will release a robust response to everything, and we will also ask for the entire video to be released since they have the video. We will seat and discuss the video. Just to be clear that video was taken long before now and it was released just as this point.”   However,  more experienced PDP leaders knew they had to avoid the spread of the damage. First,  Chief Femi Fani-Kayode was the first PDP figure to publicly call for the arrest of Senator Abbo. It was a good move to distance PDP from the Senator's debacle.  Then came the moves by Atiku. The presidential candidate of the PDP and its de facto national leader, called Senator Abbo and advised him (it was probably an order) to publicly apologize unconditionally. Atiku did more than that.  He also called the party machinery to initiate disciplinary process against the Senator and he urged the police to ensure that the law was enforced.   These were the events that caused the Senator to abandon his grandstanding and to apologize. He was even reported to have wept as a show of remorse. The only place the leaders of the PDP could have done more was in assigning an adult or experienced professional to the Senator to help him draft a more effective apology. Allowing him to draft his apology without help was not the best.  The poorly written apology he gave may be subject of further attacks, which risks prolonging a matter they would rather see behind them.

We appreciate the sympathy and support from our members. Emeka Ugwuonye himself is always touched each time he hears about the support of our members.  When he hears about the prayers and wishes of our members,  his eyes will light up with special glitter. He is very quiet and deep in thinking.  He then says: "How are they doing?  How is (this person or that person) doing". He then adds: "I love them so much.  Just tell them not to worry.  It will be over soon and we are winning". These are his regular word when we visit him. And when we tell him certain things done by people to harm him or DPA, he smiles or laughes, and he would say: "You need to understand that even these negative events are ultimately positive. They show the importance and potential of DPA. It means we cannot be written off.  For them to be spending so much energy and resources against DPA, that tells you they are scared of DPA. So,  don't feel bad.  Just make sure we prove them wrong". He is always in great spirit even though he hasn't been feeling well lately. The only thing that bothers him the most is that he feels that most of our members do not understand the case well and that's why they approach the case with so much sentiment. This is the case in a nutshell: 1) The Abuja police command felt they were attacked by discussions on DPA Facebook wall where they were accused of incompetence and corruption.  They needed to stop that.  They threatened and warned the Founder to stop.  But the Founder refused.  He insisted that we are doing the right thing by demanding for full transparent investigation in Chacha's case. 2) After 2 years,  the police thought they found an easy way to close Chacha's case and claim they did a good job.  That easy way was to have Jekwu, the last on the list of Chacha's friends, to confess under torture.  Jekwu confessed and under more torture,  he implicated his friend (who had never met Chacha). That one too was forced to confess.  With these men confessed,  the police put the icing on the cake by parading them under a well-rehearsed and packaged TV production.  For the police,  the case was closed and well-wrapped up and the puplic was fooled. (That's how DPA saw what was going on).  DPA refused to accept that charade. 3) As we continued to accuse the Abuja police command,  they had to try other things to silence DPA. Mere threats and warnings were not working for them.  But they could not just physically beat up Emeka or assassinate him.  They resorted to blackmail - targeting Emeka's law license. But in the business of law,  Emeka Ugwuonye is in the Clouds. He doesn't need a shop in Obalande or Wuse market to operate from.  Indeed,  Emeka has spent the past 20 years working on how to practice law from the jurisdictionless base of the Clouds. 4) The police needed to package a war plan against the stubborn DPA Founder.  A good plan was to come in form of acting on a petition from David. (David started writing petitions since 2016: why did they wait till 2018 to act on it? 5) The Abuja police command realized that Emeka Ugwuonye did not live in Abuja. They had no easy way to find Eneka and arrest him.  So,  they had to first localize their war plan. They filed 4 frivolous charges against Emeka in Abuja Magistrate courts. The implication was clear. If Emeka failed to show up in court for any of those cases,  there would be a bench warrant. And once such bench warrant issued, it would become a matter between the courts and Emeka. You see how the police tried to force the courts into having an issue with Emeka?  And each time Emeka came to court, that gives the police the knowledge of where to find him and arrest him. 6) When everything else failed,  the police came to the absurd point. The only way to get Emeka detained without trial was to accuse him of capital offence. The police understood the inherent weakness of Nigeria's judicial system,  which is that once the word "murder" appears on a charge sheet,  most of the courts in Nigeria do read beyond that.  They remand you automatically. We knew that risk existed.  We knew the police would go even to the point of assassination to stop Emeka and DPA. But Emeka decided to allow things to play out so he can show the world how bad things are in Nigeria. 7) So,  our members need to understand that all this was foreseen.  Emeka  knew the police would go to the extent they went,  and that the courts will not be able to stop them.  Such has been happening to millions of Nigerians and nobody notices. Emeka wanted his case to shine the light on this despicable situation in the Nigerian justice system. And the more Emeka suffers, the more we will achieve the objective.  We believe the enemies of DPA are in cauldron - in the big iron pot of pepper soup. We appreciate your sympathies. But rather than cry too much,  let's thank God for a leader who is willing to use himself as a sacrificial lamb to change the system. Effort is under way for the Founder to come out of detention.  That will happen.  So,  let's not despair.

Yes,  every government in the world uses the power to choose who, when and how to prosecute a person for a "crime" as a way to intimidate and control political opponents. But nowhere on earth is such abusive use of the prosecutorial powers of the state as rampant as in Nigeria at the present time. Every democratic legal system makes efforts to check such abusive prosecutorial powers. That is what the due process rights of a person are meant to prevent.  By setting clear standards and limitations for the government,  individuals are protected from the tendency of government to single out their opponents and persecute them through improper indictments in criminal courts. The prevention of the abusive prosecutorial powers is the key reason for the establishment of the Due Process Organization (DPA). Let us point out just a few examples of the dangerous and perversive manner in which successive governments of Nigeria and their agencies have abused this power. This is probably one remarkable difference between the rights abuses committed under the military rule and those committed under civilian rule.  Indeed,  there have been far more Human Rights violations since 1999 than any comparable period during military rule. The difference is that the military government abused your rights without much pretence of prosecuting you in a court of law. So,  on the face of it,  everybody could see that your rights are being abused.  On the other hand,  the civilian government will actually abuse your rights while pretending to go through the courts.  Abuses by civilian governments end up more invidious and pervasive because they are disguised as rule of law and justice.  Yet,  it nothing other than jungle justice in practical effects. For instance: much of all that has been done under the EFCC in Nigeria has been to use that agency to control and suppress opponents of the government of the day. EFCC has remained an instrument of political control.  No wonder it spent much of its time at the early stages in impeaching state governors opposed to President Obadanjo. Such abusive use of prosecutorial authority is seen recently most glaringly in the case of the Chief Justice of Nigeria. The government and its prosecutorial authorities fabricated sensational stories against the CJN,  smeared and damaged his reputation,  searched his office and lied against him in the media. All the agencies of the government  - police,  EFCC,  the DSS,  the Code of Conduct Bureau were all used.  The same executive that does not know how to conduct elections could actually deploy enormous assets just to indict a CJN on fabricated evidence. To have the CJN sit in the dock and answer questions was the ultimate aberration, and humiliation of the head of the judiciary. And that was just because the presidency saw him as an opponent that needed to be controlled, and chose to do it right through prosecution in a court of law. Another glaring abuse of prosecutorial powers of the state is the current case of Emeka Ugwuonye. Compare that case with the case of Gani Fawehinmi working on Dele Giwa. The military government never thought of charging Fawehinmi with the murder of Dele Giwa. But the police did just that to Emeka Ugwuonye. There are many more instances.  About 80% of all prosecutions in Nigeria is done on the basis of fabricated evidence and often against those the government perceive as enemies. DPA is an organization that is determined to curtail the abusive use of the prosecutorial powers of the state.  This means that DPA will be working hard to strengthen the safeguards provided under the due process provisions of the law.  The case of Emeka Ugwuonye is actually a potent weapon and the best training experience for DPA members. If any of them did not understand the dangers that the organization is meant to fight,  now it is easy to understand it just by following the case of their Founder.

Yesterday, at the resumed hearing in the case, Commissioner of Police v.  Ephraim Emeka Ugwuonye, it became clear that the case would drag out. This is too typical of Nigerian criminal trials.  Once bail is not immediately granted,  the accused person is as good as having been convicted. This makes nonsense of the notion of presumption of innocence.  The accuser feels that his mission has been accomplished. As if to further shock everybody, the judge admitted that she had not read the proof of evidence in the case because it was voluminous. What actually made it voluminous was that the police attached volumes of repetitive DPA posts on its Facebook wall.  But the shock came from the fact that by admitting that she had not read the proof of evidence,  the judge admitted that she failed to do what she ought to gave done early in the case.  Emeka Ugwuonye's bail application called on the court to determine that nothing in the proof of evidence submitted to court linked Emeka Ugwuonye to the offences charged.  That required the court to immediately assess the proof of evidence.  But if court has not read the proof of evidence,  then, how could it have reached its decision on Ugwuonye's bail application judicially and judiciously? In yesterday's trial,  David Aiyedegbon's cross-examination was completed. It became a problem rescheduling the next hearing date,  as the police prosecutor insisted he would not be available on any of the days suggested in the next two weeks. With Easter close-by, it became harder to agree on a date in April. Emeka Ugwuonye and his lawyers will focus on securing his bail before the next date set for the continuation of trial. From every indication,  Ugwuonye and his lawyers are optimistic and upbeat about the outcome of the day's proceedings.

Today David Aiyedogbon is enjoying the leverage of impunity and abuse of power by the Nigerian Police Abuja command. No doubt, he is a happy man. He is not only enjoying the full backing of the Police but he is as well being shielded by the Police from investigation and possible prosecution. How long the leverage lasts is only known to the almighty God. But as for Emeka Ugwuonye Esquire,  he has played his part gallantly. Posterity will judge him kindly. One of the aims of the Nigerian Police in their vicious persecution, vendetta and calumny against Emeka Ugwuonye has been more on how to exonerate David Aiyedogbon than finding what happened to Charity Aiyedogbon( Cha-Cha.) Once David is shown to be free, then the case is closed. That is why Nigerians should appreciate Emeka Ugwuonye for his sacrifices to ensure that the case is still alive. We have seen from the lackluster attitude of the Nigerian Police Abuja command and the desperation of David Aiyedegbon to destroy all evidence pointing at him as having hands in the fate that  befall his late wife. David and Emeka has different objectives. While Emeka's objective is to find what happened to Cha-Cha, Davids objective is to exonerate himself from the fate that visited Cha-Cha. The truth will be revealed, despite how long it is delayed. Emeka and David's objectives appear to be right depending  on the perspective from where one views it but time shall tell.

Today David Aiyedogbon is enjoying the leverage of impunity and abuse of power by the Nigerian Police Abuja command. No doubt, he is a happy man. He is not only enjoying the full backing of the Police but he is as well being shielded by the Police from investigation and possible prosecution. How long the leverage lasts is only known to the almighty God. But as for Emeka Ugwuonye Esquire,  he has played his part gallantly. Posterity will judge him kindly. One of the aims of the Nigerian Police in their vicious persecution, vendetta and calumny against Emeka Ugwuonye has been more on how to exonerate David Aiyedogbon than finding what happened to Charity Aiyedogbon( Cha-Cha.) Once David is shown to be free, then the case is closed. That is why Nigerians should appreciate Emeka Ugwuonye for his sacrifices to ensure that the case is still alive. We have seen from the lackluster attitude of the Nigerian Police Abuja command and the desperation of David Aiyedegbon to destroy all evidence pointing at him as having hands in the fate that  befall his late wife. David and Emeka has different objectives. While Emeka's objective is to find what happened to Cha-Cha, Davids objective is to exonerate himself from the fate that visited Cha-Cha. The truth will be revealed, despite how long it is delayed. Emeka and David's objectives appear to be right depending  on the perspective from where one views it but time shall tell.

Today David Aiyedogbon is enjoying the leverage of impunity and abuse of power by the Nigerian Police Abuja command. No doubt, he is a happy man. He is not only enjoying the full backing of the Police but he is as well being shielded by the Police from investigation and possible prosecution. How long the leverage lasts is only known to the almighty God. But as for Emeka Ugwuonye Esquire,  he has played his part gallantly. Posterity will judge him kindly. One of the aims of the Nigerian Police in their vicious persecution, vendetta and calumny against Emeka Ugwuonye has been more on how to exonerate David Aiyedogbon than finding what happened to Charity Aiyedogbon( Cha-Cha.) Once David is shown to be free, then the case is closed. That is why Nigerians should appreciate Emeka Ugwuonye for his sacrifices to ensure that the case is still alive. We have seen from the lackluster attitude of the Nigerian Police Abuja command and the desperation of David Aiyedegbon to destroy all evidence pointing at him as having hands in the fate that  befall his late wife. David and Emeka has different objectives. While Emeka's objective is to find what happened to Cha-Cha, Davids objective is to exonerate himself from the fate that visited Cha-Cha. The truth will be revealed, despite how long it is delayed. Emeka and David's objectives appear to be right depending  on the perspective from where one views it but time shall tell.