AFTER allegedly being tear-gassed and poisoned with a chemical substance, the Rivers State House of Assembly Majority Leader, Chidi Lloyd, may have started going blind in police custody.
The Deputy Speaker of the House, Leyii Kwanee, raised the alarm in Port Harcourt Sunday that despite Lloyd’s condition, his colleagues had been denied access to him.
But the state People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman, Felix Obuah, has accused Governor Chibuike Amaechi of plotting
to scuttle the prosecution of Lloyd for attempted murder of his colleague, Michael Chindah.
Already, the Chairman of the Police Service Commission (PSC), Mike Okiro, has arrived in Port Harcourt to investigate allegations of partisanship and professional misconduct levelled against the state Commissioner of Police, Mbu Joseph Mbu, by Amaechi.
Speaking with journalists in Port Harcourt, Kwanee said: “Chidi Lloyd was blindfolded. He was tortured and tear-gas was spread all over him. As I speak to you, some of us have been refused access to him. We have been informed that Chidi Lloyd is going blind, occasioned by the tear-gas that was thrown all over him, particularly on his eyes. Medical help has been refused also to him.”
Lloyd had reported to the Force Headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday last week following an invitation by the police over the fracas that took place on the floor of the Rivers State House of Assembly on July 9. He was brought back to Port Harcourt amid tight security on Friday and many had anticipated that he would be arraigned by the police but to no avail.
Piqued by the continued detention of the leader of the House, Kwanee urged the police authorities and the politicians behind the lawmaker’s ordeal to recall that Nigeria is a signatory to a lot of conventions and treaties on human rights. He disclosed that the House had already assembled a team of legal experts to look at the possibility of putting together what he said were all the human rights abuses inflicted on Lloyd with a view to pressing legal charges against those behind his predicament in a foreign court.
“Chidi Lloyd was blindfolded. I am not saying what I don’t know. The facts are there. One of us who accompanied him from Abuja said as soon as they approached OPM church (along G.U. Ake Road, Port Harcourt), the vehicle they were in was stopped and they waited there for 15 minutes and shortly after that, a Black Maria was brought where Chidi Lloyd was dragged out of the vehicle and pushed into the Black Maria, blindfolded and tortured,” he said.
Kwanee said the Speaker of the House, Otelemaba Amachree, who is currently attending the Commonwealth parliamentary conference, had briefed the international community of the ordeal of Lloyd.
Similarly, 25 pro-Amaechi’s lawmakers in a joint statement issued yesterday said they were gravely concerned about the life of their leader whose whereabouts had been shrouded in mystery since he was brought back to Port Harcourt from Abuja on Friday. They said Mbu should be held liable if any harm befell him.
“Is Mbu aware of Chidi Lloyd’s medical history? This calculated poisoning of Chidi Lloyd reminds us of the assumed circumstances leading to the death of our one-time Senate President, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo. Why the blindfold? He is only alleged to have committed an offence. He is not a terrorist, and he is neither an armed robber nor a kidnapper. He is a representative of Emohua Constituency of Ikwerre Ethnic nationality at the Rivers State House of Assembly and a legal practitioner who will stand for truth and justice even when the truth is too much for those bent on destroying our hard-earned democracy with unnecessary impunity,” they said.
The lawmakers questioned the rationale for the handcuffing of Lloyd when he submitted himself to the police. According to them, all the humiliation meted out to him by the police commissioner was to glorify his political benefactors.
“We genuinely fear for the life of the Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly whose present whereabouts remain unknown and whose only offence is that he defended democracy and its values. We condemn in entirety the role of the Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, as we search for peace in our state and call on Nigerians to be prayerful as their scripts are re-written,” they added.
When contacted to confirm the allegation that Lloyd was being tortured on Mbu’s directives and that he was going blind, the Rivers State Police Command spokesperson, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Angela Agabe, told The Guardian: “Please, I don’t have any comment on that.”
In a statement issued on his behalf by his Media Adviser, Jerry Needam, Obuah said yesterday in Port Harcourt that based on reliable information he received, Amaechi had directed the state attorney-general to prevent the prosecution of Lloyd in Port Harcourt.
According to Obuah, Amaechi who has never cared to visit Chindah in the hospital or offer any assistance or condolence to him or his family, is hell-bent on frustrating the prosecution of Lloyd through the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Worgu Boms, “an evidence that the governor is comfortable with the life-threatening harm that Lloyd caused Chindah.”
“If Governor Amaechi desires peace, he would have gone to see the badly battered lawmaker and shown concern for the sake of humanity but instead of that, he is plotting that the attorney- general of the state should enter a nolle prosequi to terminate the criminal proceedings to be commenced against Honourable Lloyd. Such an action will not only be morally wrong but amounts to an abuse of office and miscarriage of justice. It will heighten bitterness and provoke the sympathisers and relatives of Honourable Chindah who may be forced to believe that the action of Honourable Lloyd was not an accident but planned and masterminded by the governor and Lloyd”, he said.
“Irrespective of what has happened, it is inhuman and absolutely wrong for the governor to be blocking the due process of justice in such a highly sensitive case where a lawmaker would have murdered another on the floor of the House as was shown on television.”
According to Obuah, if the attorney-general goes ahead to issue a nolle prosequi to terminate the trial of Lloyd, the situation might heighten tension and further threaten the prevailing fragile peace in the state and nobody can tell the extent of this development.
He urged the people of the state and members of the PDP to continue to pray for the recovery of Chinda who is undergoing medical treatment in London.
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