By Martin Nwoko
A 2019 governorship candidate in Imo State, Uche Nwosu, on Tuesday, said his arrest on Sunday at St Peter’s Anglican Church Eziama Obaire in Nkwerre Local Government Area of the state was at the instance of the Imo state governor, Hope Uzodinma.
However, the state government has since refuted Nwosu’s allegations stressing that Uzodinma does not have a hand in his arrest by the police.
Nwosu, a son-in-law to former governor of the state, Rochas Okorocha, who spoke to journalists in Owerri, said that the purported arrest was a plan to assassinate him.
Addressing newsmen, Nwosu narrated how he was arrested in church, taken to Enugu airport and boarded a charted aircraft to Abuja. He alleged that the governor used his Chief Security officer and other security operatives attached to the state government house to arrest, humiliate and possibly eliminate him .
He further disclosed that he was stripped half-naked, and handcuffed on the orders of the state governor.
The former governorship candidate said that he had no hand in the insecurity rocking the state, saying that an unnamed young man, who accused him in a viral video of giving him money to escalate insecurity in the state was “dressed in the state government house” and asked to implicate him.
Nwosu advised Uzodinma to eschew bitterness and concentrate more on governance than politics.
He said that those who arrested him, invaded the church, jumped to the altar, disrupted sermons and shot indiscriminately in the church.
Saying that the order was to kill him, Nwosu who buttressed his point in an emotional laden voice, said, those who “abducted me were masked, hijacked me in church, manhandled and, ordered me to lie on the floor in the vehicle, while one of them rested one of his legs on my head.”
Continuing, Nwosu said, “While the sermon was ongoing, I saw some security men who came into the church, I asked my boys to go and welcome them because I thought they escorted a VIP to the church to condole with me over the death of my mother.
All of a sudden, over 15 masked security operatives jumped into the church. While some rushed to the altar, some came to where I was sitting and ordered me to move or they move me. They started shooting and disrupted sermon that was ongoing.
“I demanded to know what was going on but they said they had an instruction to bring me. They manhandled me and bundled me into one of the vehicles they came in. One of them ordered me to lie down and one of them placed his leg on my head.”
“When they drove off, they started making calls in Hausa language and unknown to them I understand the Hausa language.”
Uche Nwosu also used the opportunity to call on the Inspector General of Police and the Commissioner of Police in Imo State to look into security issues happening in the state to bring it to an end.
Reacting to Nwosu’s allegations, the state Commissioner for Information and Strategy, Declan Emelumba, in a statement, stated, “This is a malicious concoction, that can only be made up by a drowning man. It is pitiable that rather than go into a sobering reflection on his arrest, Nwosu, upon his release on bail, was in a hurry to allege without any proof that his arrest was masterminded by Imo State Government.”
