Ene Okon is the Abia State commissioner of police. In this interview with OKEY SAMPSON, he debunked claims that the police was plotting to arrest Eze Isaac Okwu Kanu, father of the leader of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB), Nnamdi Kanu. Okon decalred that he would however not spare the IPOB leader if he steps his foot on Abia soil because according him, Kanu is a wanted man.
Young people in Aba are complaining on social media that SARS personnel are going about harassing them. Has this come to your knowledge?
You have mentioned social media and in Nigeria we know the role of social media, they are bound to write and say anything.
Social media is junk journalism as far as I’m concerned. And let me tell you one thing, a criminal will be the one to shout first that police are pursuing him, police are after him. You know the role of the so called young people in Aba, majority of them are to say the least criminals and you cannot tell me that I’m paid to fight crime and criminality that I will not go after them. SARS must go after criminals; have you heard about any decent person complaining that SARS is going after him? These are people that go about committing all sorts of crimes in the city and you want us to fold our hands and watch them because they are making noise in the social media? Can you compare the situation in Aba two or three months ago with what we have now? You can’t compare, the people in Aba are sleeping with their two eyes closed now because of what SARS has been able to do.
There are reports that police in Abia State are making plans to arrest HRH Isaac Okwu Kanu, the father of IPOB leader, Nnamdi kanu, How true is this?
Well, in Nigeria these days propaganda, malicious publication and blackmail have become the order of the day, but I must tell you there has never been anything like that. The truth of the matter is that the police command received intelligence information that the proscribed Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) was planning to hold a protest to whether celebrate or protest alleged killing of their members during Operation Python Dance. And as an organization that is vested with the mandate of maintenance of peace and order, and being armed with such intelligence information, we could not have sat back and watch the peace of the whole environment and the area being disturbed by a proscribed organization, IPOB. We proactively fortified the Afaraukwu area (Nnamdi Kanu’s community). And already, for over two years now, we have had our nipping points there which have always been manned by police. What we mainly did was to increase the number of policemen to man that area based on the information at our disposal. There was no time the policemen went beyond 100 metres to the house of Nnamdi Kanu or that of his father.
At any rate, the police is not aware, it’s not to the knowledge of the police that Nnamdi Kanu’s father is even there. Remember there was this trending news made by the same IPOB that Nnamdi Kanu’s father was missing, that soldiers of Operation Python Dance took him away. Police is not aware of his father’s presence there. Okay, if I may ask, what offence did a man of 90 commit that will warrant the police going there? So, I am not going to react to baseless propaganda and all those blackmail.
Suffice it to say that if they had said it was Nnamdi kanu himself that is there, we will not waste a second to arrest him because he is already a wanted person, yes, he is wanted. The court has declared him wanted and once a man is declared wanted, it behoves on the police and even the members of the public if seen to arrest him and hand him over to the court.
So, for people to come up with propaganda to say police went to Nnamdi Kanu’s house to arrest his father is to me the highest level of falsehood that people can peddle. How can the police go to arrest a 90 –something year old man; if at all the police is aware he was there, arrest him for what offence? If police arrests him and he dies in our custody what will be our explanation? I was not a Commissioner of Police in this command two years ago when the whole atmosphere was polluted with the news that Nnamdi Kanu’s father was abducted or whatever by soldiers of Operation Python Dance to God knows where. If Nnamdi Kanu’s father is in Umuahia, we don’t know.
Will you go to arrest someone you do not see or know his whereabouts?