The Nigeria Police, on the instigation by Sahara Group, arrested Deji Adeyanju, a human rights and pro-democracy activist, on Wednesday, May 16, 2017.
According to Concerned Nigerians, a political pressure group convened by Adeyanju, who is a former new media head in the main opposition party, People’s Democratic Party, PDP, he was invited to the Area 10 Police Force CID Department in Garki, Abuja to answer questions with regards to a petition against him by the oil firm.
The activist, whose group had been exposing allegations of corruption by Sahara Group and four other oil firms in Nigeria, was arrested immediately he arrived the police office.
On Sunday, Concerned Nigerians issued a statement saying that Sahara Group was planning to use the Nigeria Police Force and the country’s secret police, the State Security Services, SSS, also known as DSS to intimidate the pro-democracy group and disrupt the activists’ work exposing high level corruption in the country’s oil sector.
“Despite willingly showing up to respond to the petition filed against him by Sahara Group, Deji [Adeyanju] was arrested,” a source within the organisation told The Trent late on Wednesday.
“Sahara Group has paid the police to torture Deji and this is so wrong. None of the oil firm’s allegation against him had any form of evidence attached, yet they decided to detain him and set steep bail conditions that they knew could not be met today.
“Deji’s arrest violates President Muhammadu Buhari-led whistleblowing policy,” the source said.
Our investigations gathered that the police kept Adeyanju in their office from around 1pm only to grant him bail at 6pm setting steep conditions which include providing a level 14 civil servant with landed property in Abuja to sign as a surety.
“We call for Mr. Adeyanju’s immediate release. In the alternative, we urge the Nigerian Police to charge him to court so he can exercise his constitutional rights to defend himself,” one of the leaders of Concerned Nigerians told The Trent on the phone.
Earlier in May, 2017, Concerned Nigerians, had taken Sahara Group to task over allegations of corrupt practises involving oil deals, importation of fuel, fuel subsidy scams, and bribery of officials in the state-owned oil firm, the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC.
In a letter dated Wednesday, May 3, 2017, and addressed to Temitope Shonubi, ‘the real CEO’ of Sahara Group, Concerned Nigerians claimed that it has obtained official documents exposing worrisome levels of corruption and breach of public trust by the energy company and demanded explanation from the firm.
