Ebonyi Farmer Seeks Inspector’s Probe for Alleged Assault, Vandalism

A 44-year-old farmer, Mr Anayo Agah, has urged the Nigeria Police authorities to investigate an Inspector, Patrick Mbam, who allegedly invaded his house with a team of miscreants and beat up his mother, nursing wife, destroyed his house and looted his property. According to Agah, who spoke with our correspondent on Thursday, the police would have further redeemed their image by launching a probe into why the officer, who was arrested, indicted in the crimes allegedly committed and subjected to Orderly Room trial, still walks freely on the streets boastfully.

A police document obtained by PUNCH Metro reveals that Mbam, who hails from Okaria village, Amachi community in the Abakaliki Local Government of Ebonyi State, armed with some dangerous weapons allegedly led some people into the area on November 14, 2023 and began to cause havoc. Further investigations revealed that no fewer than eight houses including shops were destroyed, over 250 bags of rice and other valuables looted during the incident.

Our correspondent learnt that they were arrested by a combined team of SWAT and CRACK, on November 14, 2023. Our findings further revealed that between November 2023 and February 2024, no mention was made on the report of the matter, wherein suspects in the incidents were indicted and were to be charged to court.

Speaking to our correspondent, the 44-year-old farmer, Agah, said, “Around October 2023, a group of persons led by Inspector Patrick Mbam started disrupting the peace of Okaria village, Amachi community in the Abakaliki Local Government Area of Ebonyi State. He gathered some miscreants and began to indoctrinate them into cults and administering oaths on them. When we noticed this and then urged them to stop, they didn’t listen to us but were going about causing havoc in the village.

“This continued to the point that anybody they saw in the village they would beat him up and forcefully collect his belongings. There were instances of one Aloh and Uchenna Odom that they held; they beat them up and forced them to pay money for no reason. And so, when the issue was getting out of hands, we contacted some of our notable people within and outside the village to just intimate them of what was going on. In the midst of this, one of the villagers , Luke Nkwegu, a lawyer, reported the incident to the President of Okaria Village Welfare Association, who is resident in Lagos.

“But these miscreants continued marauding the village and their patron is this same Inspector Mbam, working with DC Ops and also said to be attached to one of the judges of Ebonyi State High Court. Most of the time, he would promise these miscreants in the village that he works in the court as a policeman and nothing would happen to any of them and that all they needed to be doing was to obey his instructions. He would tell them that if it was the issue of police arrest and court that they should not be afraid, because he was in charge.According to him, “We relayed these atrocities and ugly incidents to our people outside when they continued unabated. Specifically, I’m aware that between September and October, Nkwegu wrote a petition to the Commissioner of Police in the state, detailing what was happening and the involvement of Inspector Mbam in the incidents. There had not been a reaction to that petition; or maybe the police were planning to do something.

“Then on November 14, 2023, these village miscreants went on rampage and started destroying things in the village. Owners of the things they destroyed were people whom they perceived to have been the ones that gave police information that led to that arrest.

“And then they came to my house, cha sed me away from my house with their machetes and guns. I ran out of my house. They destroyed my house, looted everything that was in that house. They went to my house at the village and brought down the entire building and destroyed everything there. I’m a farmer and I deal on insecticides too. They looted all the insecticides in my shop. They looted my 253 100kg bags of rice. They also held my mother, my wife and my little baby of not more than one month old hostage.

He said that at the state police headquarters in Abakaliki, investigations were carried on them where both Mbam and his civilian cohorts were indicted, revealing that part of the rice they allegedly looted, a tipper load of about 63 100kg bags of rice, was intercepted by the same team in another village where they were going to hide it. He lamented it was frustrating that with evidences of the crimes allegedly committed by Mbam, he was not charged to court alongside his ‘boys.’

Attempts to reach Inspector Mbam, for reaction on the matter, failed on Thursday night. Calls made to his mobile phone were not answered. He was also yet to respond to messages sent by PUNCH Metro, as of the time of filing this report. When contacted by PUNCH Metro, the Ebonyi State Police Command was reluctant to react to inquiries made by our correspondent on the matter, as messages sent and calls made to its officials were neither responded to nor answered.The Police Public Relations Officer, DSP Joshua Ukandu, denied ever hearing about the incident while the Commissioner for Police, CP Augustina Ogbodo, neither picked calls nor responded to messages to her mobile on the matter.

Source: Punch