Juliana FrancisAfter being arrested for murder and tagged a ritualist, a business
mogul who was eventually remanded in Onitsha prisons, is now out and
crying for justice.
The business magnate, Chief Bonaventure Mokwe, was arrested in connection with allegations of murder and ritual.
Barely hours that Mr. Mokwe was arrested, his Upper Class Hotel,
situated at 8, Old Market Road, Onitsha, was leveled to the grounds.
Mokwe was arrested by the police and later remanded in Onitsha prisons.
He had since secured his bail and is fighting tooth and nail to make
sure that the state government, which hurriedly pulled down his hotel
without recourse to proper police investigation, to pay him damages and
restore his reputation and that of his late father, whom he inherited
the hotel from.
An apparently furious Mokwe said his late father’s name and
reputation was smeared, when the hotel was described as a ‘proceed of
crime.’
According to him, that hotel was where the present Governor of
Anambra State, Peter Obi’s mother used to patronize and buys liquor to
sell during the 70s.
The hotel was built by his late father and handed over to him. Mokwe
said that the hotel had been in existence for 40 years. He could not
understand and forgive anyone describing his father’s hotel as a
‘proceed of crime.’
He seethes: “I won’t back down an inch until that hotel has been
restored. My reputation was destroyed. How could you arrest somebody by
8am and by 11am, you’d already ordered for the demolition of the hotel?
Governor Peter Obi told me that he was misinformed. The towns’ people
and lawyers had written to Obi on this matter.
“At this state, I have my father’s name to salvage. I owe it as a
duty to make sure I salvage my late father’s reputation even though it
means an end to my life!
“I have handed all my investments to my first son, to begin to handle
them, so that I can fight this battle! I want the state government to
sit down with my lawyers and pay me damages for my property. I have all
the time in the world. Let them pay me my money; you can’t beat somebody
and ask him not to cry.
“Nobody can wish this case away! My green card was destroyed!
Everything I had was destroyed! There are things I don’t wish to say,
but I might say them out of anger. Obi made a mistake; he should be man
enough to admit it!”
Mokwe believed that he was cleverly set up by an enemy he knows, he
however was not happy that Obi allegedly instructed the demolition of
his hotel, without trying to find out first if he was guilty or not.
Now, he wants the state government to restore that hotel.
Narrating the beginning of his ordeal, Mokwe said: “Prior to August,
1, 2013, the date I was arrested and my hotel demolition, I was involved
in a motor park dispute with Onitsha natives headed by one Mr. Patrick,
a native of Onitsha, Umudie Village and it was running for close to
four months before August, 1, 2013.
“Within that period, I wrote the Obi of Onitsha three good times,
asking him to intervene and call Onitsha youths to order and he remained
silent. All of the three letters were sent by UPS courier services.
When that failed, I wrote a petition to Anambra State Commissioner of
Police and he signed on the petition to Onitsha Area commander who in
turn assigned the case to one inspector Dike.
“When that again failed, I went to court and obtained a court order
which was served on the palace of Obi of Onitsha, the police and Mr.
Patrick, the chairman of Onitsha youth in charge of Ose market Motor
Park. Soon after that, Aghamelum bus drivers started loading in my park.
“All hell broke loose after that. Threats of all dimension started
coming from the youths of Onitsha which culminated in the planting of
the exhibits in my hotel. Two old human skulls, two Ak 47 rifles, two
loaded magazines were all packed in one bagco bag and planted in the
wardrobe at my hotel lodging room number 102. If anything, the guest who
lodged in that room should have been arrested, not me. I was arrested
and my hotel pulled down because I was the target of the set up.”
Explaining how he was arrested, Mokwe said that on that fateful day,
“I drove into my office around 7:am and before I could settled down in
my office, my hotel was surrounded by policemen numbering over 100. As I
made my way towards my office entrance, some police officers were
already in the passage. I was taken into my office and shown a search
warrant.
“In the process of doing that, one police officer betrayed the whole
adventure when he shouted to my staff outside of my office to be shown
room 102. It did not make sense to me at the time. He was later to
stumble into my office with relentless ranting but was shouted down by
one of the police officers.
“The mock searching exercise started and ended after five minutes or
thereabout at the door of room 102 with myself, the hotel manager and
the receptionist and a lot of police officers. Incidentally, the lodger
locked the room and left with the key around 6:30 am and a little after
which the policemen showed up.
“The manager informed the policemen that the room was given to one
Mr. John Obi in the evening of July, 31, 2013. The receptionist brought
the duplicate of the lodging receipts in addition with the hotel guest
manifest and both reflected John Obi as the occupant at room 102. With
the whereabouts of the lodger unknown, the police broke the door and
entered.
“The first thing I saw when the door was opened was an open
travelling bag on the floor of the room. A lot of waterproof was inside
the bag and two waterproofs on the bed. Nothing was found in the toilet
and under the bed. The police then opened the wardrobe of the room and
brought out one single bagco bag. Inside it was two rotten human skulls,
two AK 47 guns that looked unserviceable and two loaded magazines, all
in a bag.
“I was immediately handcuffed and taken to the corridor of the hotel
and was told to sit next to the exhibits while they took pictures. Soon
after that, I, along with my staff were taken to police area command
Onitsha and paraded before journalists. I was also taken to my house and
nothing was recovered. We were subsequently taken to SARS Awkuzu along
with my wife who is a lawyer at the ministry of Justice Anambra State
and detained.”
Moke said that at SARS Awkuzu, the identity of the person who lodged in room102 was unmasked.
“His real name is Egbuchiem, a native of Onitsha, Umudie Village. Mr.
Patrick is also from Onitsha Umudie Village. His picture was smuggled
and shown to the receptionist and he positively identified his as the
person he gave receipt of room 102 on that the fateful day. He was the
one that planted the exhibits in the hotel room wardrobe.”
The man said he almost died in the first two or three days at SARS
detention, adding that the treatment he received could result to an
instant death of an innocent suspect.
He mused aloud: “Any confessional statement emanating from SARS
Awkuzu is a function of an individual pain threshold. The place appears
to lack funding and scientific device of any kind that could enable the
police isolate innocent people from criminals. I spent a total of two
months and 17 days at SARS Awkuzu.”
He continued his narration: “A week or thereabout after I arrived
SARS Awkuzu, it became increasingly clear that the incident was a
set-up. Matters were not helped by what occurred when the police first
took me to the grave of one Mr. Nwoye Akas Oredo, a native of Nkwelle
Ezunaka, Itite Village Akpukwu family who died in 1972 when I was still
running around naked and they told me that I killed and buried the man
at the place.
“The same day, I was taken to a large fenced compound at 33 Nkwelle
Ezunaka with the belief that I owned the land only to discover that the
property did not belong to me. A portion of the fence was knocked down
by the police and an old decayed human body wrapped in a brand-new
waterproof was exhumed from a not more than two feet grave. No attempt
was made by the police to arrest the real owner of the property for
investigation on how the dead body came about. It was all heaped on me.
“No complainant was in sight two months into the case. Till date,
there is no complainant irrespective of police terrible effort in
manufacturing one in their bid to save Governor Peter Obi from his
self-Inflicted liability.”
Mokwe said that a petition was written by his lawyers to the IGP,
listing the names of those behind his set up, but “the police
deliberately sat on it because arresting them would mean releasing me
and that would have meant a state financial liability and embarrassment
for Governor Peter Obi.
“With the police under relentless pressure, I, along with three of my
staff was arraigned in court on October, 17, 2013 and a manufactured
murder charge along with possession of human skull and firearms was
heaped on us and we were subsequently reminded in prison till November,
4, 2013 when we were granted bail.”
The businessman, who has already hired lawyers to fight his case,
including renowned lawyer, Femi Falana, said that the true reasons why
his hotel was speedily demolished within hours of his arrest, without
informing the police command “are also in the custody of my lawyers,
Falana and Falana chambers. All these will be made public when and if
the need arises by Falana and Falana chambers.
“The demolition of my hotel had nothing to do with fighting crime.
Latter day approach made by Obi to the State House Assembly to pass a
law to legalize his illegal and self-serving demolition of my hotel
speaks volume and so are other facts that are yet to be made public.”
