Let me start by sincerely apologizing for all the suspense I have created here for the past five days. It was not deliberate. It was instigated by circumstances surrounding our invitation to the Force Headquarters. But I will bring that suspense to an end today.
When James Ibor Esq and I, received our invitations from the Police, our first question mark was the inability of the invitation to mention who the petitioner was and what the petition was about. We tried to enquire from the Police but they weren’t forthcoming. We had to use our own informal contacts to know who the petitioner was. It was one Ursula Agbor.
Having known who the petitioner is, the first instinct was to ignore the invitation. Not because we have no respect for the Police, but because we knew for a fact that the petitioner is a non-entity. But our lawyer, First Baba Isa, advised that it will amount to disrespecting the Police if we refused to honor their invitation because it emanated from a non-entity.
So we set out for the Force CID headquarters in Abuja. Both of us are not new to Police invitations. We both arrived Abuja from different locations (Lagos and Calabar), on Sunday and proceeded to the National Cyber Crime Center NCCC on Monday 11am, as scheduled. The non-entity who petitioned us was in the dock in a Magistrate court in Calabar. She is standing trial for three criminal charges.
We met with the Police officers who were already expecting us and I must confess that the Police officers who interviewed us exhibited the highest form of professionalism I have ever witnessed in all my many encounters with the Police. They were firm, disciplined and cautious and I give them kudos. No intimidation at all.
We were given a copy of the petition against us to sight. The petitioner alleged that James Ibor Esq and yours sincerely, have been cyber stalking and cyber bullying her over the past one month in our posts on Facebook, by publishing the threats she sent to one Ms. Loveth, a restaurant owner in Calabar. After the initial interrogation, we were given statement forms to write down our own side of the events. We did, under caution by our lawyer who accompanied us. When we were through, the Police asked that we will have to provide one surety each, for us to go home. We quickly made calls and the sureties came over and signed for us. We were then taken before the Director of the NCCC, a very amiable gentleman and a Commissioner of Police CP.
The CP further asked us a few questions and commended us for honoring the Police invitation but hinted us that, if we didn’t, the Police would have come to our homes to arrest us. He informed us that though we were going to be released on bail that day, we will have to come back the following day by 11am because he had invited the complainant to come from Calabar so we could meet and explore the option of Alternative Dispute Resolution ADR.
He added that, should that fail eventually, the Police have the option of charging us to court. He also warned us to refrain from commenting on the matter under investigation on our facebook timelines while he was still making efforts to resolve the issues and our lawyer also advised us not to. This informed the hiatus you noticed on my timeline. After that, we left.
The following day, Tuesday, we arrived a few minutes after 11am along with Omoyele Sowore and many of our comrades who had joined us in solidarity, but the complainant was not yet around. We got hint that they were going to depart Calabar by 1pm. We then proceeded to go get food to eat and returned to the NCCC by 5pm when the complainant, her counsel and her boyfriend/manager, Justin had arrived.
We were all taken straight to the office of the CP. We sat round his conference table and one after the other, he asked us to explain our issues in turns. He patiently listened and later asked what we wanted. He re-emphasized the fact that he wanted us to resolve the issues amicably via ADR, but if that doesn’t work, the Police will conclude their investigation and charge us to court.
Counsels for both the complaint and the accused were asked to go and talk to their clients and agree on terms and return with their clients to the CP on Wednesday by noon. We then left on day two. Back in the hotel, we informed our counsel that, as part of our own effort to support the ADR process, since the Police picked issues with the fact that the side of the complainant was not captured in our several publications on Facebook, we will give her the right of reply to chronicle whatever she wanted to say initially and send it to us and we will publish it verbatim on our timelines, without hesitation.
This was written and sent via Whatsapp to the complainant’s counsel, who described it as ridiculous and an attempt to trivialize the matters. In her response, she said as follows:
Following deliberations and in the spirit of potential reconciliation, Miss Agbor has outlined the following conditions under which she may consider withdrawing the criminal complaint:
- Your clients shall jointly engage the services of a certified firm of ICT experts to conduct a comprehensive purge of all social media posts made on their respective Facebook pages and other digital platforms between 4th July and 30th July 2025, which are deemed injurious to the reputation of Miss Agbor.
- Both of your clients shall compose a written and unqualified apology to Miss Agbor. The draft apology shall be subject to approval by her legal representatives and, once accepted, must be published on their respective Facebook pages. This apology shall remain accessible and prominently displayed for One year, until 31st August, 2026.
- Your clients shall provide full reimbursement for all costs reasonably incurred by Miss Agbor from 4th July 2025 until the date of final resolution, including but not limited to legal fees, professional advisory costs, and emotional wellness support.
- Miss Agbor reserves the right to pursue any civil claims arising from the same events, in a bid to further protect and restore her reputation. The withdrawal of this criminal complaint does not constitute a waiver of such rights.
Should the aforementioned conditions be met in a timely and satisfactory manner, Miss Ursula Onah Agbor shall proceed with the necessary formalities to discontinue the criminal complaint. However, this resolution is contingent upon full compliance with all stipulated terms.
Our counsel sent this reply to us and we bluntly rejected all the conditions. We went back to the CP on Wednesday by noon again as agreed and the exchange went on. The matter remained inconclusive and our own counsel, who was attending an NBA event arrived at that meeting late. The CP didn’t want to make a decision in his absence and advised that we should go and continue talking and return on Thursday to give him feedback on how far we have gone.
Both sides maintained their positions. On my part, I told our counsel that it appears it was an Apology Deficiency Syndrome ADS, that may have ended the life of the complainant in her previous life and she must have made up her mind to amass as many apologies as she can to prolong her days in this lifetime. The reason I called the complainant out was because we wanted to halt this pattern of coarsing people to write her apologies and it was unimaginable that we will now condescend to joining the list of those who wrote apologies to someone who is actually a career bully. It was actually annoying. We informed our counsel that we will rather be arraigned in court and be remanded in prison custody until we are granted bail, than to make any concession for a bragging roving bully.
On Thursday, we all arrived at the NCCC by noon again. This time, the CP wasn’t around. He informed us the previous day that he had a function. We met with the head of Legal and another officer, a gentleman. Our counsel told them we could not agree on terms. The complainant counsel asked if there were any of the conditions we were ready to adopt so they could shift grounds and we vehemently refused. In their conclusion, the Police then told us that the civil aspect of the matter isn’t under their purview but for the criminal aspect of the complaint, they will conclude their investigation, review the case file and duly inform both counsels whether charges will be filed or not. And that is where we are at the moment.
CONCLUSION:
I want to use this opportunity to assure Cross Riverians, both those that Ursula has intimidated in the past, those she is intimidating at the moment and those she is planning to intimidate in the future that, I will rather go through the inconvenience that is required to cure this her sickness than to bow to her arrogance. Never shall it ever be heard in the ears of anyone that I was cowed by a person whose only stock in trade is to make the life of others miserable because she feels she knows some persons or because she can drop names. NEVER! The Police station is not a law court, I would rather have my day in court, than will my days to Ursula. The battle has just begun until this nausea is surmounted. This pest must be insecticided.
Once again, sorry about the silence.
Yours sincerely,
Citizen Agba Jalingo is the Publisher of CrossRiverWatch and a rights activist, a Cross Riverian, and writes from Lagos.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Agba Jalingo, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.