 |
| Frank Omare |
Men of the Delta State Police Command yesterday again swooped on the family of Hyacinth Okwute, the suspect in the case of swindling of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan’s Commissioner for Environment, Frank Omare, of N13.8 million.
The Commissioner had three weeks ago kept N60 million in his Sport Utility Vehicle (SUV) boot at the Commissioners’ Lodge before his cook, one Hyacinth Okwute, allegedly broke into it and ran away with over N13 million.
Irked by this, the Commissioner seized the suspect’s seven children and masterminded the arrest of his six months pregnant wife at the ‘A’ Division in Asaba, before the suspect’s family lawyer raised alarm in a petition to the Inspector-General of Police, Muhammed Abubakar.
The petition, dated August 14, 2012, signed by B.C. Ofiaeli and Associates and made available to the Nigerian Compass, also addressed to the state Commissioner of Police, Ayo Ikechukwu Aduba, Governor Uduaghan and the state’s Commissioner for Women Affairs, Chief Betty Efekoda, accused Omare of aiding and abetting their abduction.
The matter assumed a dangerous dimension in Asaba, the Delta state capital, yesterday after the wife and children, including Sophia, his younger brothers and sister, Kelvin, Dominion and Nonso Unachukwu, were again sandwiched to the command headquarters and detained.
The development forced Human-Right Activists to indicate interest in the matter, vowing to reclaim the “battered fundamental human rights” of the suspect’s kinsmen and wondering why the police left “the substance of the case and were chasing shadows.”
Although, the Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Charles Muka, a Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) claimed ignorance of the arrest and detention, a senior police officer at the command’s Anti-Kidnapping Department (Anti-Vice) confirmed them being in custody but assured that the process of releasing them was in progress.
While the cook was still at large, the suspect’s kinsmen who besieged the command headquarters yesterday wondered why the police were feeding fat on the matter by their incessant arrest of his children and wife on the order of the Commissioner.
They maintained that their son, Hyacinth (the suspect) was allegedly framed up in the N13.8 million saga by Omare and his aides, forcing him to run for his dear life.
