Police raid Ekweremadu’s Abuja house

Men of the Nigerian Police Force on Friday raided the official guest house of the Deputy Senate President, Senator Ike Ekweremadu.

The raid said to have taken place at 8am that day however saw the police leaving the house empty handed.

A statement by the Special Adviser to Ekweremadu’s on media,  Uche Ani Chukwuka confirmed the development. The statement indicated that men of the Nigeria Police at  about 8am on Friday, May 26, 2017 raided the residence located at Ganges street,  Maitama,  Abuja.

The statement reads in part: “At about 8am on Friday, May 26, 2017 men of the Nigeria Police Force from the Inspector General of Police Special Squad raided the official guest house of the Deputy President of the Senate, Senator Ike Ekweremadu, located at No. 10 Ganges Street, Maitama, Abuja. The statement, however, said that at the end of the search that nothing incriminating was found.

“They met the steward, Oliver Ogenyi, and some of Ekweramdu’s staff and their children in the house. In spite of the fact that they were informed that the property is the guest house of the Deputy President of the Senate, they nevertheless proceeded to thoroughly search the house without establishing any contact with the Deputy President of the Senate or any of his senior staff. The steward was taken away by the police to the Special Anti-Robbery (SARS) Office, Garki, Abuja, where the IGP Special Squad’s office is also located. Ogenyi was later released after making a statement.

“The Deputy President of the Senate is a law-abiding citizen and does not dispute the fact that the security agencies are empowered by law to carry out searches on premises in accordance with the law. However, the law requires that the owner of the property or his representative must be informed and should be present during the search.

“Senator Ekweremadu is worried about the manner in which his guest house was raided. The questions are: Was there a search warrant? What were they looking for? Who searched the police officers before the search? Who supervised the search?

“Instructively, this incident comes just a few weeks after Senator Ekweremadu, on May 3, 2017, read to the Senate in plenary a written, but anonymous tip-off by a patriotic Nigerian on a plot to plant incriminating sums of foreign currencies, arms, and ammunitions in a house linked to him under the pretext of the whistle blower policy. The aim, according to the source, was to rubbish, arrest, prosecute, and ultimately remove Senator Ekweremadu from office.

“It is also apposite at this point to inform Nigerians that the Deputy President of the Senate has received at least three different forewarnings from various highly-placed sources before the written tip-off he read before the Senate, and they all pointed in the same direction: a clandestine effort to uproot the Senator from office by all means possible.”

PDP Senators condemn raid

The Senate Caucus of the  People’s Democratic Party  (PDP) on Friday condemned  the police raid on the guest house of Senator  Ekweremadu.

The caucus in a statement by its spokesman Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe said the raid was an aberration.

The PDP Senators said that the raid was an affront on the legislature .

The statement  described the Police action as unwarranted, unacceptable and a deliberate attempt to muzzle the opposition.

The statement  also faulted  the explanations by the Police  that they acted on whistle blower tipoff, saying the failed gestapo-like operation was nothing but a smokescreen to cover up a carefully cheorographed plot to intimidate Senator Ekweremadu and by so doing cow the opposition from pointing out the failings of the government of the day.

Senator Abaribe stated that the raid,  which he said was ordered by the Inspector General of police on a property owned by the National Assembly was a willful affront on democracy.

The statement further read:”We had raised alarm on this plot not too long ago and now they have carried out the assignment only to reach a dead end, to the embarrassment of the police and other anti-democratic forces bent on casting a wicked shadow on our flegling democracy.

“We of the Senate PDP Caucus will never be intimidated or cowed in discharging our constitutional mandate of providing a responsible opposition.

“Is it not an irony that the raid in the National Assembly guest house is coming on the eve of the democracy day anniversary? A raid on a property of another arm of government is a dangerous  continuation of attack on the institutions that effects the needed checks on the excesses of the executive. It cast an ominous sign and this must stop. “