His travails began some 40 days ago in calabar
in the early hours of 17th June, 2016 at about 1am, 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 2 and 5. 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 put him in comunicado before bundling him into a waiting vehicle and took
him to an unknown destination.
This is the emotion 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
pipelines 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, Mohamodu 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 virile, denied in unequivocal format that the man in the custody of the
DSS, Selky Torughedi was 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 its been 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.
Several attempts through
telephone calls, texts messages and personal visits to the DSS headquarters in
Aso Drive, Abuja to have their views on the condition of Torughedi and what is
being done to charge him court, met a stone wall. Not even any of the texts was
honored with a reply.
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 pipelines including
bombings of major installations of the oil companies operating 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 solving their grievances
which have been somewhat wooly, they have remained recalcitrant, electing to
continually blow up oil installations virtually every other day.
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Society