Ebere WabaraNo fewer than seven fierce-looking policemen from the Abia state CID, allegedly working as errand boys for Abia state governor, Theodor Orji, yesterday, stormed the Surulere, Lagos residence of Mr. Ebere Wabara, Associate Editor of The Sun newspaper and Special Assistant on Media to Dr. Uzor Orji Kalu, whisking him away to Umuahia in what has been described as ghestapo like style.
The policemen, dangling their identity cards before the editor and members of his family, marched him from his residence in the van they came in, drove to Sholoki Police Station in Aguda, Surulere, and later to Oyingbo police station, also in Lagos before they disappeared with the editor into thin air.
The incident occured at about 6.30a.m in the presence of Wabara’s wife and underaged children.
The policemen told the editor before taking him away that some unnamed persons had written a petition against him in Abia State and that he should follow them to Umuahia, Abia state, where he would be charged with sedition.
Narrating the drama that played out before the editor was whisked away, his wife, Mrs. Adanna Wabara, a mother of two kids aged eight and six years, respectively, said that between 6.30 and 7.00a.m, her husband had gone downstairs to take something from his car.
“Shortly after, I heard him shouting and I ran downstairs. I saw between seven and eight men, who said they were policemen. They said he needed to follow them to Umuahia, that there was a petition against him for sedition.
“They took us back into the house, one of them brought out an I.D Card, showing that he was a policeman. They requested to search our bedroom. They did, and collected my husband’s laptop and telephone.
“I followed as they took him to Sholoki Police Station, but later, I had to take the children to school. By the time I returned, they had moved him away. His phones could not be reached, and he had not eaten. Now, we are deeply traumatized, the entire family.”
In a statement, management of The Sun Publishing Limited said it described the abduction of Mr. Wabara which it said obviously came on the orders of the Abia State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Adamu Ibrahim, and under the further instruction of the state governor, Chief T. A. Orji, as a throwback to the dark days of military dictatorship, when might was right, and the strong trampled on the weak.
The statement signed by the Managing Director/Editor-In-Chief, Mr. Femi Adesina said: “it is unconscionable, repressive and flies in the face of all that is decent and civil. It has all the trappings of autocracy, rather then democracy.”
The Sun newspaper management insisted that if Mr. Wabara had infringed any law, “we would have expected the police to invite him to answer questions, and then charge him to court. The approach that has been adopted is Ghestapo-like, and unbecoming of those who instigated it.
“Those entrusted with the upholding of the law are not expected to trample on others. This is what the policemen from Abia State have done, and it runs contrary to the code of conduct for policemen as espoused by the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Dikko Abubakar.”
The Sun said that when it contacted the Force Public Relations Officer, CSP Frank Mba, he made quality efforts to resolve the matter, urging that Mr. Wabara’s statement be taken in Lagos, and that he be given the opportunity to thereafter report in Umuahia, but that the policemen who abducted him appeared to have another design to keep him in detention over the weekend, saying: “it is simply despicable.”
