30th March, 2015
Jethro Ibileke/Benin
The family of Edo State Deputy Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Usman Mogaji, have raised the alarm over his disappearance since Saturday when soldiers from the Nigerian Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering in Auchi stormed his house in Auchi.
Family members of Mogaji who alleged that the soldiers harassed them, also arrested Mogaji’s son, his cousin, cook and security-man and have held them incommunicado since Sunday.
Mogaji’s lawyer, Hilary Oshomah, who was in Benin City Monday to formally report the incident at the state police command, told journalists that the soldiers were acting on instructions from their Commandant and a top politician who is not from the area but who came with soldiers on election day to supervise apparent disruption of the election process.
According to him, Mogaji’s offence is that he was the one who mobilised voters to resist the attempt by the politician using the soldiers to disrupt the process on Saturday.
Oshomah while alleging that Chief Raymond Dokpesi was behind the travails of his client, said “he came with soldiers; himself and Brigadier General Odidi who is the Commandant of the Nigerian Army School of Electrical and Mechanical Engineering (NASEME), Auchi who incidentally is a kinsman of Raymond Dokpesi, to Mogaji’s house
“Fortunately for Mogaji, he got wind of it and he had to hide in the rooftop of his building where he watched as they brutalised members of his family, got the security man mercilessly beaten, insisting that he must declare where his boss is and they left with the promise that they are coming back and actually yesterday (Sunday), they came back in the early hours of the morning and of course with the development of the previous day, Mogaji did not sleep in his house.
“They came back more re-enforced, fully armed with over 40 of them and broke into the house, vandalised the property, smashed doors and windows and even shot at the door to gain their way in. The pellets are there, and at the end of the day, they forcibly took away members of his family, including the security-man, the son who just returned from Sweden, his cook and his cousin.
“They took them to their barracks where they subjected them to marathon bouts of beating and torture and at the end of the day, threw them into the guardroom where they are as we talk, still being held for no offence other than that they should produce their father, that they have instruction from above to get him dead or alive,” Oshomah narrated.
According to the lawyer, the latest information was that the soldiers have sent a message to the Otaru of Auchi that they were aware that Mogaji is taking refuge in his palace and demanded that he should turn him in, addin that over 40 soldiers have occupied Mogaji’s house.
Oshoma therefore demanded that “the rights and privileges of his client should be respected,” adding that “they should vacate his property and his wards and children being detained be released unconditionally.”