Kenneth Ofoma, ENUGU
A legal practitioner, Barrister Amos Ogbonnaya, has given a chilling account of how he was abducted, tortured, forced into a shallow grave and his two legs broken before his miraculous survival.
Ogbonnaya, a former Coordinator of Anuagata Development
Centre of Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi State, who is currently
receiving treatment in a hospital, accused Ebonyi State government of
masterminding his recent kidnap, torture and attempted murder.
But the Commissioner for Information, Ebonyi State
Barrister Uchenna Orji has dismissed the allegation as a tale fabricated by
Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) to tarnish the image of the state government.
This is even as the State Governor, Chief David
Umahi has ordered investigation into the abduction with the view to exposing
the real perpetrators.
However, the Ebonyi State PDP spokesperson,
Barrister Silas Onu insisted that government agents as named by the victim were
responsible for the abduction. Onu alleged that anybody who criticises the
policies and projects of the state government usually faces harassment and
intimidation. He insisted that Ogbonnaya’s ordeal was just one out of many such
attempts to muzzle and kill opposition voices in the state.
Ogbonnaya, who alleged that he was sacked as Coordinator
of Anuagata Development Centre of Ohaozara Local Government Area of Ebonyi
State, in 2020 for not mobilising thugs to attack #Endsars protesters, said
that he appeared on the television programme with representatives of G-64 group
of ex-Coordinators, who were equally demanding payment of their severance and
statutory allowances after their removal from office.
Speaking from his hospital bed, Ogbonnaya said: “My
kidnap took place a few days after my appearance on a national television,
where I criticised the programmes and projects of the state government. I also
demanded to be paid my statutory allowances, which were owed me since my
removal from office in 2020.”
He alleged that during his abduction, which occurred
at about 5: pm, on May 14, at a major junction in his community, he put up a
struggle to attract passers-by, a development that made his abductors to start
shooting sporadically into the air to scare people away.
The ex-coordinator identified his abductors as
agents of the state government. He alleged that his abductors, who told him
that he was insulting the state governor, came in a Toyota Hilux vehicle, which
he identified as the official vehicle of one of the Senior Special Assistants
(SSA) to the governor.
He explained that as they pushed him into a shallow
grave, he pleaded that he be allowed to say his last prayers which they granted
him. He specifically begged one of the abductors who happened to be his
townsman that what they were about to do was to take the life of the only son
and father of four boys.
Ogbonnaya recalled that the abductors, who were
interrupted several times by phone calls, changed their minds and instead beat
him to a state of coma and then broke his two legs with the butt of their guns
before dumping him in the middle of the road. This was happening at about 1:
am, said Ogbonnaya.
“I thought I would be crushed by a heavy duty
vehicle.”
He also recollected that after the men dumped him in
the middle of the road and drove off, they had actually believed that he was
dead.
“On hearing the sounds of an oncoming truck, I
mustered the last strength in my body and rolled off the road. I started
calling for help and then I passed out,” said Ogbonnaya.
When he was discovered along the road in the morning
by a bus driver that recognised him, and he was rushed to the village hospital
for first aid treatment. It was at the hospital that his relations later
announced to everybody as a decoy, that they were taking him to Abakaliki, but
on their way, they sneaked him to Enugu State for safety.
Ogbonnaya recounted: “Not long after I was moved, my
abductors invaded the village hospital and shot sporadically into the air,
demanding for me, but they were told I had been moved to Abakaliki. On our way
to Enugu; we’ve not even got here, we got a call that those men went to the
village hospital in the same Hilux vehicle, shooting into the air, and causing everyone
to scamper for safety. We were told that the men were shouting, ‘Where is he? Where
is he?’ They ransacked all the wards, but couldn’t find me. They came to finish
what they started. If God did not send that bus driver in the morning to move
me out of that place, they would have returned to kill me; they wanted to cove
the evidence.”
However, Orji has dissociated the state government
from the alleged abduction of Ogbonnaya, stressing that the PDP’s indictment of
the state government in the incident was a ruse to cover its ugly past.
Orji said: “The general public should therefore note
that the alleged kidnap of Amos Ogbonna is part of the grand design by his
syndicate of political howlers to cause tension in the state and incite public
hatred on a government they hold in very high esteem.”
The state Governor, Chief David Umahi has directed
the police to carry out full scale investigation into the matter to expose the
perpetrators, even as he restated his commitment to the security and safety of
all citizens despite political divide, according to a statement released by Mr.
Francis Nwaze, Special Assistant to the Governor on Media and Publicity.
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