His travails began some 40 days
ago in calabar in the early hours of 17th June, 2016 at about 1a.m, a
time when ordinary men succumb to the call of nature of slumbering.
Some heavily armed men numbering about ten decked in black uniform
with hood drawn over their faces to conceal their identities broke into
his house where he lives with his wife and three very young children
aged between two and five. They dragged him from his bed, stripped the
wife naked for God-knows-reason, and handcuffed him in the presence of
the wife and the young children.
For a grueling 45 minutes, they
virtually turned the house upside down as they searched every nook and
cranny apparently in search of incriminating objects. When they could
not find any, the men who introduced themselves as operatives of the
Department of State Security elected to literarily drag him from the
house, impounded his entire phones to make sure nobody could reach him,
before bundling him into a waiting vehicle and took him to an unknown
destination.
This is the emotional story of Mrs.
Alaere Selky Torughedi, the wife of Selki kile Torughedi, an ex militant
who has been languishing in the dungeon of the Department of State
Security for allegedly being a member of rampaging Niger Delta Avengers,
a militant group that has claimed responsibility for the bombings of
several oil and gas installations in the Niger Delta region in recent
time.
No sooner was he arrested from his
Calabar residence than he was transferred to Abuja where the DSS
gleefully informed the nation that it has succeeded in arresting one of
the arrowheads of the militant group who have been sabotaging the
economy of the country through their nefarious activities.
Besides being labeled a key figure in
the group, the DSS also told the nation that he is a close associate of
the wanted former militant commander, Government Ekpemupolo also known
as Tompolo and that it has an intelligent report that Selki Torughedi
was planning to kill one MB Yahaya, a serving Army officer on special
duty in the troubled region.
The news of the arrest of Selky
Torughedi was cheering to many Nigerians who felt that the special
military operation ordered by President Muhammadu Buhari to flush out
the so called unrepentant militants was making headway.
However, in what looks like a twist of
fortune, a couple of days after the heartwarming story of the exploits
of the security operatives in ridding the nation of the creeping menace
of the militants, the Niger Delta Avengers in an online broadcast which
went viral, announced in unequivocal format that the man in the custody
of the DSS, Selky Torughedi was never their member. Rather they branded
him a mole who the Security agency was trying to use as a decoy to trap
them.
Confusion, confusion! Who is right and
who is abridging the truth? Since the dual contradictory statements on
the ownership of Selky Torughedi, mum has been the word from the camps
of the feuding parties. And so the man Torughedi remains a pitiable
orphan who could be likened in the local parlance to an albino who is
neither a white man, nor a black man, going by the color of his skin.
The situation of Selky Torughedi has
become a conundrum of sorts? Is he actually a member of the Niger Delta
Avengers, or is he a red herring the government is spinning to entrap
the kingpins of the organization? Why would a group deny its member who
is caught in the line of an avowed operation? Is there an antecedent of
this nature we can readily draw inference from? These are some of the
puzzles discerning minds who have been following the DSS\Torughedi
matter have been confronted with.
According to Alaere, the wife of the
detained accused, her husband is not a member of the Niger Delta
Avengers and neither is he a close associate of Tompolo as it is being
peddled by the DSS, rather she said her husband has been involved in
helping the Bayelsa State government in fighting sea pirates and
kidnapping in Southern Ijaw local government area.
“If he is actually a member of the Niger
Delta Avengers, they will never deny him as they have done. There would
have been an oath of ‘we stand together, we fall together’ which is the
creed of the militants. Besides it is a known fact that the avengers do
not live in the city because they know they are being hunted.” Mrs.
Torughedi informed.
Torughedi Selky also known as the Young
shall grow, according to the wife, is the only ex militant the late
President Musa Yar Adua called a freedom fighter because of his
humanitarian gesture which made him to organize a monthly environmental
sanitation in his community where he paid every woman in need in
Azuzuama a monthly salary, opened a nursery and primary school where
tuition and school uniform were free and committed a substantial part of
his income to the provision of welfare for his community.
Continuing the mother of three who is
almost an emotional wreck, said since her husband’s arrests about 40
days ago, he has been denied access to his lawyer, his family members,
and neither has he been charged to court for the world to know whether
he is still alive or dead.
She said her husband’s lawyer has
written an application to be granted access to see him but the DSS
turned it down and every effort to have an interview with him as a basic
fundamental human right and freedom under any democratic climate has
been rebuffed by the security agency.
Apparently piqued by the seeming breech
of the rights of the detainee of access to legal representation under
the stipulated time legally allowed for detention without trial, counsel
to the accused, Emeka Uchegbulam Esq has filed a suit at the Federal
High court in Abuja against the Director General, DSS for the
enforcement of his fundamental human rights pursuant to section 46 sub
section 3 of the 1999 constitution of the federal Republic of Nigeria as
amended.
Uchegbulam is asking that a declaration
be made to the effect that the arrest and detention of Torughedi since
June 17th without trial or access to legal representation is illegal,
unlawful oppressive and a violation of the fundamental rights of his
client.
Emeka Uchegbulam would also want the
court to give an order compelling the Department of state security to
immediately release Torughedi if they cannot charge him to court for
want of evidence that could engender prosecution.
It would be recalled that the federal
government has had a running battle with the new militia group in the
Niger Delta that calls itself the Niger Delta Avenger. For several
months on, the group has engaged in the vandalisation of oil and gas
installations in the region thereby impacting negatively on the
productive capacity of the country and by extension, the economy of the
nation.
Despite concerted pleas by well meaning
Nigerians including the President himself to the group to sheathe their
swords and come to the table for discussion with a view to attending to
their grievances which have been somewhat wooly, they have remained
recalcitrant, electing to continually blow up oil installations
virtually every other day.
Packaged by Alice Egbedele
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