Recent revelations have shown how Abba Kyari, Nigeria’s disgraced ‘supercop’ ordered the immediate diversion into private custody all cash and assets seized from slain abduction lord Collins ‘E-Money’ Ezenwa in 2018 according to Peoples Gazette and based on police internal memo and testimonies of a police prosecutor.
Police prosecutor Nosa Uhumwangho revealed this to the Nigerian Bar Association NBA Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) on Wednesday when he was under cross examination after being dragged to the NBA disciplinary committee by a lawyer and human rights activist, Justice Ijeoma, for “conduct unbecoming of a legal practitioner”.
Ezenwa, a dismissed police corporal who subsequently formed a kidnapping gang , was killed in a gun duel with an IRT team in 2018 when luck ran out of him and his dare devil gang in a botched attempt to kidnap a South-African-based Nigerian businessman in Owerri.
After his death ,more than thirteen buildings including a hotel worth billions of naira, which belonged to the late kidnapper were reportedly traced by operatives of the Inspector-General of Police Intelligence Response Team to Abia, Imo and Enugu states, while seven cars, two SUVs, one Hilux truck, a commercial bus, two tipper-lorries and a trailer belonging to him were also recovered from several locations within the South-East.
But Gift Ezenwa, the wife of the late kidnapper had accused Mr Kyari and his team of attempting to take over her late husband’s businesses and property as well as withdrawing money from his accounts into their private pockets.
Earlier in 2019 Mr Kyari denied any wrongdoing after petitions were examined by the Nigeria Human Rights Commission and Amnesty International, accusing the Intelligence Response Team headed by the disgraced police chief of illegally squandering the asset of the kidnap kingpin.
But Mr Nosa Uhumwangho, the IRT legal officer in a 131-paragraph affidavit submitted to the NBA-LPDC on June 30 ,2021 and seen by Peoples Gazette, said Kyari diverted ₦3,075,300 generated from Mr Ezenwa’s De-Ingrid Hotel and another property at Edinburgh, Enugu into his private account on the orders of Mr Kyari; with the former police boss citing “reasons best known to him”.
Mr Uhumwangho also alleged that Mr Kyari ordered a notorious cultist, Tochukwu Okeke, to obtain rents from Mr Ezenwa’s properties on his behalf. Mr Okeke is currently detained at the 82 Division of the Nigerian army over alleged ties with IPOB gunmen in the southeast.
The lawyer’s testimony followed a petition by a lawyer and human rights activist Justice Ijeoma who accused him of “conduct unbecoming of a legal practitioner”.
Mr Ijeoma had earlier submitted a petition to the NBA-LDPC accusing Mr Uhumwangho of conniving with other officers to illegally convert Mr Ezenwa’s properties.
Mr Kyari had in a letter dated 25th January, 2019 claimed that the NHRC authorised him to recover money from the kidnap kingpin’s account and pay it in a private account while the matter was pending in court.
Abba Kyari wrote, “ The National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria (Presidential Panel on SARS Reforms) which sat in Abuja on 25th January, 2019, directed the Legal Officer of IGP-IRT to recover money in possession of any person controlling the aforesaid properties and make them render account.
“In view of the above-stated fact, you are hereby directed/ordered to recover any money therefrom and take possession and make sure it is properly kept and safe in your custody, because if paid into the Police account, it will be difficult to recover it and tender it before the court as the matter is still pending at the Honourable Federal High Court, Owerri Judicial Division. The court may make demand for it in the nearest future.
“Thank you for your patriotic zeal in serving the Nigeria Police Force and your motherland to the best of your ability and capability. Accept the assurance of my high esteem regard.”, Kyari’s letter read.
The claim was, however, denied by sources from the NHRC panel which sat between- 14 and 26 January 2019.
M Ezenwa, a former police corporal was killed on January 27, 2018, along Enugu-Owerri Expressway, while he journeyed with two of his cousins who were also alleged to be kidnappers.
The late kidnapper joined the police in 2009 and resigned on N47, 000 salary in November 2017.
