By CrossRiverWatch Admin
As the principal suspect in the attack on Mr. Joseph Odok in Calabar, Patience Odey and her alleged accomplice, Raphael Odu, continue to cool their feet in detention at the Force Criminal Investigation Department in Abuja, counsel to Mr. Odok, Barrister Victor Okangbe, has told CrossRiverWatch that he doubts the involvement of the State Security Adviser SSA, Mr. Jude Ngaji in the plot.
Mr. Okangbe who said he was giving us the facts of the matter as they are, cautioned that he detests sensationalization and would give the facts and not what some people want to hear.
Below is the excerpts of the interview.
CRW: Barrister, we understand you are the counsel to Mr. Joseph Odok in the matter he has with the suspects currently held at the Force CID in Abuja , kindly give us an update on the events as they have unfolded.
Ans:
I will just give you the facts just as they are. Because I don’t believe in sensation. I am a lawyer in practice and even though I am a politician of APC bent, I don’t fight people like that.
Mr. Odok engaged me and when they came, he said he was attacked and almost murdered in Calabar. He showed me all the bruises on his body and the scars and he told me how he got to the (state) Police Command, the DSS in the state and how they have compromised and all that and I said well, the truth about Nigeria is that we have a federal structure that if you are not satisfied with what is happening at the state level, you can appeal to the federal level not just through the Court of Appeal but also by way of appealing to a higher authority in the hierarchy of either the Police or the DSS. So I had to on his behalf, as his lawyer, I had to petition the IG and the Director General of the State Security Service. The IG promptly responded and ordered an investigation into the whole issue.
So this week Thursday, Mr. Odok was invited to the police station. I took him to the Force CID, where he made his own statement and adopted his petition. On adoption of his petition, the police were able to sift the substance of the petition and said they were going to invite the parties.
When I say parties, I mean the respondents, those I mentioned in the petition as the attackers of Joseph Odok. So in the process, the police went to Calabar and picked two principal suspects who were one Patience Odey and Raphael Odu.
When they picked them up to Abuja, the police obtained their statements and in the course of the Commissioner of Police interview, because the Commissioner of Police interviewed them based on their statements and they admitted that Mr. Raphael Odu had to use the girl to see how they can entrap Joseph Odok, whom he claimed has been a torn on the flesh of the state government.
That he did use that young girl to lure the young man to a particular hotel and it was at that point that the guy was attacked and almost killed. He was lucky to have survived the attack.
So the Police Commissioner asked that both the lawyers to the suspects and myself should be at the interview. And when we were there, they had to establish criminal facie case of attempted assassination. That has been established.
However in the course of the oral interview, the young man (Raphael Odu) was claiming that it was his boss (that sent him). That he is responsible to the SSA (State Security Adviser) who is Mr. Jude Ngaji and that it was Mr. Jude Ngaji that said he wanted that guy. But in a telephone interview that the Police called Jude to appear, Jude said that young man is not answerable to him and that he is ready to come to Abuja on Monday and the same Jude has told the Police that he has a recording of the guy’s conversation with him where he said he had to mention him because he needs support and and that because he (Jude) was the one who asked him to turn himself to the Police in Calabar, that he feels abandoned.
But I think as a lawyer, if you look at the matter, it is not about sensation, that is why from the beginning I said I will tell you the facts as they are. Not what people want to hear. People want to hear that, oh the governor has been invited, he is to come and so so so. But for me as a lawyer to the complainant, I see Mr. Raphael acting overzealously in the conduct of his so called official duties as a Director of Homeland Security and I don’t think he is acting in concert with any known or unknown principal because for me there is no evidence that anyone directed him to get Joseph Odok killed.
I think for me, he should rather think of how to exculpate himself than people to indict. The Police don’t act on assumptions and even we as lawyers, we dont don’t act on assumptions or permutations or stories or hatred or trying to bring somebody down because you dont like him or you like him but you feel abandoned or whatever. I think basically, the matter of attempted assassination has been established and by Tuesday we will meet again with the Police.
Jude is expected in Abuja on Tuesday but he has even said he will come on Monday because from what the Director of Homeland Security said, he was even trying to lie that Jude is abroad, and Jude said no way it’s a lie, that he is in Nigeria. May be he was trying to lie so that the issue of inviting Jude now will not come up so that he can now push the buck to him. That’s like a ploy and remember I just told you that Jude has told the Police in a telephone conversation with one of the OC at the IG’s office that he has a recorded apology offered by Raphael Odu that he only had to enlist his name there to see how he can get himself out of the matter. That he knows that what he is saying is not correct. But I think that is to be confirmed by Jude himself when he appears.
Meanwhile, a Police source at the FCID who is familiar with the matter has told CrossRiverWatch that the suspects are still detained until they can provide sureties who must be directors in the civil service, resident in Abuja and ready to provide them any time the Police needs them.
The source also hinted that the Police will charge the suspects to court at the conclusion of investigation.
One family member who also spoke to this reporter was however optimistic that they may meet the conditions by Monday.
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