From Stanley Uzoaru, Owerri
Former governor of Imo State Rochas Okorocha has appealed the Inspector General of Police (IGP) to save two political allies, Casmir Ugbor and Ojukwu Ukonu, who he said were wrongly arrested and linked as suspects of the jailbreak of April 5.
The two suspects in police custody, according to a statement the senator released through his media adviser, Sam Onwuemeodo, were arrested alongside their wives for offence he said they never committed. Senator Okorocha claimed that their only offence was that they belong to his political family.
The senator has also faulted the police on the date it stated it arrested the duo, insisting that they were arrested three weeks ago and not on May 27 as it now claimed in their recent press statement.
Okorocha said: ‘In the press release, we called on the Commissioner of police to release Ojukwu Ukonu and Ugbor Casmir because we knew and still know that their arrest, was part of the relentless effort to add none existent flesh to the mentioning of Senator Rochas Okorocha’s name by the state government twenty four hours after the Police Headquarters and Correctional Centre, Owerri attacks happened.
‘We equally claimed that they were arrested and detained on the strength of the petition said to have been written by the state government, in which the names of Okorocha’s political associates and members of his large political family were listed for arrest. Nobody denied this claim because it was a fact.
‘It is, therefore, not that’s that the police arrested Ojukwu Ukonu and Ugbor Casmir on Thursday, May 27, 2021, like the lmo Police Command’s PRO claimed . And we stand to be contradicted or challenged on this claim.
‘Associating the two gentlemen in focus with the Police Headquarters and Correctional Centre Owerri attacks, was most uncharitable, very ungodly, unpatriotic and inhuman. Their only offence to the best of our knowledge is that, they are members of Okorocha’s large political family.
‘We, therefore, call on the lnspector General of Police to takeover the case files of Ojukwu Ukonu and Ugbor Casmir, to know whose report or claim or account to believe. Whether to believe the account or claim of the police in lmo, that the two men were arrested on Thursday, May 27, 2021or our own claim that, they have been in detention for three weeks now.’