The Publisher and Editor-in-Chief of Owerri, Imo state based Community Watchdog Newspapers, Comr. Precious Nwadike, has filed a lawsuit against the Nigeria Police
Force for unlawful invasion of his office, handcuffing and dragging him before an Owerri Magistrate Court over a publication on the missing Imo State Bailout fund.
In a suit with No HOW/41/2016, filed at the Owerri High Court, Nwadike is claiming the sum of N300 million as collateral damages for abuse of his rights, invasion of his office and attendant humiliation in the hands of security personnel acting under the instructions of the Imo State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Lakanu.
Also joined in the suit is the Attorney General (AG) of Imo State, Mr Uche Nwosu, who is the son-in-law to Imo state Executive Governor, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, but presently serving as the Chief of Staff to the Governor.
The said Uche Nwosu as Chief of Staff to the Governor was given the additional responsibility of presiding over the disbursement of N26.8 billion bailout fund released to Imo State by President Muhammadu Buhari.
The fund was meant specifically for the payment of arrears of salaries owed Imo workers and pensioners.
It was, however, discovered that several months after the Executive Governor of Imo State, Owelle Rochas Okorocha has publicly acknowledged receipt of the N26.8billion, and appointed his son-in-law, Uche Nwosu as Chairman of the disbursement committee, several civil servants and staff of government parastatals were not paid or even considered for payment of arrears of their salaries, running into several months. Furthermore, no single pensioner in Imo State was paid or scheduled for such payments.
The Community Watchdog Newspapers later stumbled on the reason for the non-payment of salary arrears due to several Imo workers.
The paper gathered that a certain domestic cook to the Chief of Staff to the Governor, simply called Henry, a Beninoise, made away with billions of naira of the fund allegedly kept in a safe in the house of the Chairman of the ‘Bailout Disbursement Committee,’ and Chief of Staff to the Executive Governor, Uche Nwosu.
It was, also, gathered that while no date has been fixed for the hearing of Nwadikes’s case against the Imo State Commissioner of Police and Mr Uche Nwosu, or the case assigned to any resident judge of Imo High Court, Owerri Judicial Division, the Magistrate Court 9 will continue hearing in the suit brought by Uche Nwosu, and the Police Commissioner against Comr. Precious Nwadike and Community Watchdog Newspapers, on the February 5, 2016.
