The arrested 45 year old okonkwo by Anambra Police whereabouts, remains unknown

Twenty-eight-year-old Mrs. Ebere Okonkwo, has not been herself, since her husband, Dubuem Okonkwo, a member of Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria (TOAN), Awka branch, was arrested by police on March 15, 2022.

   

The 45-year-old was picked up at Unizik junction park by the police and was later paraded with other suspects by the state’s Commissioner of Police Mr. Echen Echen meanwhile 48 days after Dubem was arrested, his wife, Ebere is left to manage their 22 month-old Amanda, without any information about her husband.

  

 

She called on President Muhammadu Buhari, The Inspector-General of Police and good spirited Nigerians to help her and the daughter see her husband again, because all her efforts to see her husband proved abortive.

 

According to Dubem's wife, she said the case was more complicated that apart from the fact that his husband's picture was sighted among those paraded at the Police headquarters on March 16, his name was not listed among the suspects in the statement released by the state’s PRO, Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Toochukwu Ikenga.

     

Ikenga said: “On Tuesday 15th March, 2022 information was received that a cult group had launched an attack on Unizik vigilante group at miracle junction, ifite, Awka. “Police operatives were mobilised to trap the gang as they fled from the scene. The effort paid off as the Police succeeded in demobilising the gang and recovering a cache of weapons, which included the two AK-47 rifles earlier stolen from the two policemen murdered on December 14, 2021.

  

“Other items recovered are, two Ak47, three pump actions guns, three locally made beretta pistols, one local-made chief recover pistol, nine Ak-47 magazines, two battle axes, assorted ammunition for the firearms above and the Mercedes Benz V-Booth marked Lagos HC 661 AAA, which the gang was operating with was also recovered.

 

“Further more the leader of the gang, identified to be Uchenna Nwobu a.k.a Anali was killed, while the other gang member was arrested. Investigation is ongoing aimed at tracking down other members of the gang and discovering the rightful owner of the recovered car.”

 

Narrating the inability to locate her husband, Ebere said the Police PRO told them that her husband was arrested with some other people but did not disclose his crime, She explained that her husband is not a cultist, but rather peace loving since they got married. 

 

She said: “They told me that he was a suspected informant to cultists but ever since I and our lawyers visited the office of the PRO severally with my husband’s younger brother with the intention of setting my eyes on him to ascertain what actually happened, I have not seen him.   

 

“At first, the PRO, Mr. Ikenga, directed us to Awkuzu SARS, where we spent so much time looking for him there and never saw him. Also, we went to PRO two days ago, the lawyer and I; he told us that we should go and see the Commissioner of PoliceWhen we called the Commissioner of Police, he directed us to the state CID, our lawyer visited the state CID, but still never saw him there.

 

Also, the family had, through their lawyer, S.O Iwuba of Standard Trust Chambers, written to the commissioner of police, requesting to see the detainee but nothing came out of it, in the letter dated April 4 and titled: “Application to See Mr. Chidubem Okonkwo in your custody”, the family appealed to the commissioner to use his office to order Awkuzu SARS to grant them access to the detainee.

 

 

Spokesperson for Anambra State Police Command, Toochukwu Ikenga, dropped the call on hearing the man’s name. He neither picked continuous calls nor responded to text messages sent to his phone by the man's family.