The Rivers State police command said it does not owe Rivers State Governor Chibuike Amaechi any apology for preventing his fight from taking off at Airforce Base, Port Harcourt, on suspicion that he intended to smuggle out of the state the Leader of the House of Assembly, Chidi Lloyd, who stands accused of murder.
The police also disclosed that failure to account for Lloyd’s departure by the four plain-clothed policemen deployed to the Kerley Harrision Hospital in Port Harcourt is being investigated.
Amaechi had on Thursday accused the Commissioner of Police, Mr. Mbu Joseph Mbu, of issuing a directive barring a plane billed to convey him from Port Harcourt to Abuja from taking off, on suspicion that Lloyd was about to be smuggled outside the country to evade justice.
Lloyd was involved in a ghastly accident that claimed the lives of police Sergeant Urang Obadiah and Mr. Kingsley Ejeuo on December 30, 2013. He was arrested in his house in Port Harcourt on Thursday and accused of murder.
Rivers State Police Command spokesperson, Ahmad Muhammad, said in Port Harcourt yesterday that the police have many sources of information and if they suspected that Lloyd was being taken out of the state, they have to go and search the place. To this end, he insisted that the police do not owe the governor any apology.
“Where have we gone wrong that we should apologise? We reasonably suspected that he was trying to smuggle him out. The police reasonably suspected,” said Muhammad.
Though Lloyd’s legal counsel, Emenike Ebete, has insisted that his client was discharged from the hospital, the police yesterday still declared that he was smuggled out through the back door of the hospital in three black SUVs with tinted screens.
“That was why I referred to the past. We are all living witnesses of the fracas in the House of Assembly on July 9. The ADC of the governor was involved? What happened? Where is he? Who smuggled him out of the country?” he asked.
He based the arrest of Lloyd on new facts suggesting there was foul play in the accident. The police, which claimed that Ejeuo was an arch opponent of Lloyd in Emohua politics, also refuted claim by the legal counsel to the lawmaker, Emenike Ebete, that the lawmaker submitted himself to the police at Rumuji on the day of the accident.
The police mouthpiece insisted that Lloyd might have got wind of the fresh facts at the disposal of the police that the accident was intended to kill Ejeou, hence the decision to move from one clinic to another.
“No stones will be left unturned. The issue of Chidi Lloyd escaping from the hospital is also being investigated. The policemen that were on duty there are also being investigated. When he came to the realisation that our plain-clothed policemen were watching him, why did he leave that hospital?” Muhammad asked.
He continued: “Chidi Lloyd is under arrest and the matter will be investigated thoroughly. We will not leave any stones unturned. What baffles me is that the members of the public are only talking about Kingsley. What of the sergeant? Is he not a Nigerian? Has he no right to life, as enshrined in the constitution of Nigeria? Are the lives of these two Nigerians worthless?”
But elder brother to one of the victims, Mr. Godspower Ejeuo, who admitted that his brother was a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, said he does not want the death to be politicised.
“I want government and the people who are responsible to investigate and move very fast, so that my brother is buried,” he said.
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