SAN FRANCISCO, October 21, (THEWILL) – The last is yet to be heard of the October 7-8 raid on the homes of some judgesby the Department of State Services, DSS, as one of the arrested judges, Justice Sylvester Ngwuta of the Supreme Court has claimed that the DSS operatives, who came to arrest him, planted hard currency in his house.
Justice Ngwuta alleged that his ordeal was a result of his refusal at various times to help the All Progressives Congress, APC, pervert justice in governorship election disputes involving Ekiti, Rivers and Ebonyi states, even as he identified the Minister of Transport, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi and Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu, as those who allegedly approached him on behalf of the APC.
The judge made this allegation in an October 18 letter entitled: “Invasion Of My House In The Night, Planting Of Huge Sums Of Money In Different Currencies, Purported Recovery Of The Money, Carting Away Of My Documents And Other Valuable Items And My Subsequent Abduction By Masked Operatives Of The DSS Between Friday, October 7 And Saturday, October 8, 2016”, addressed to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, CJN, Justice Mahmud Mohammed and the National Judicial Council, NJC.
Ngwuta claimed that Amaechi begged him to facilitate the removal of Governor Ayodele Fayose of Ekiti State, adding that shortly after the Supreme Court affirmed the election of Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, Amaechi also called him on phone and said “Oga is not happy.”
According to the judge, “I asked him who is the unhappy “Oga” and he answered “Buhari”. I retorted “go and talk to his wife.”
He told the CJN that the Minister of Science and Technology, on the other hand, wanted him to convince the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa, to facilitate the declaration of candidate of the Labour Party as winner of the last governorship election in Ebonyi State. He stated that he was told by Onu that the Labour Party candidate was ready to defect to the APC once the judgment was in his favour.
Narrating how the said money was planted in his house, Ngwuta said, “Some days before Friday, 7th October, 2016, I started feeling symptoms of malaria attack. Any malaria drug keeps me drowsy and sleeping for days and since I had to go to work I decided to hang on until Fridayto take the drug after work.
“I returned from work late Friday afternoon, had a meal and took the medication I got from Dr. Ukah of the Supreme Court Medical Centre. By 7.30 pm I was already in bed having switched off my hand sets. After a little while, my house maid knocked on the door to my bedroom.
“I reluctantly dragged myself to the door. She told me that a group of people wanted to see me. I told her to inform whoever wanted to see me that night that I do not see visitors in the night, that they could come to see me in day time. I went back to sleep. I could not tell how long later that I heard knocks on the door.
“I ignored the knocks but when my house girl continued knocking on the door, I managed to get up and opened the door. She told me that some people said that the President sent them to me. I got out of the room to find that a large number of people some of whom wore face masks and hand gloves were everywhere in the ground floor. I told my house maid to ask the people to meet me in my study next door to the bedroom.
“They rushed into my study; one of them said his name was John. He flashed a card to me and showed me what he said was a search warrant. My vision was blurred as a result of the malaria and the drug I took. They had drawn guns. I was terrified and I thought they had a more sinister mission than a mere search.
“I made to know whether the Chief Justice of Nigeria knew of their mission. One of them contemptuously spat ‘Who is Chief Judge of Nigeria?’ I brought out my handset to call the Chief Registrar of the Supreme Court, they would not let me do so. Rather, they collected my three phones and another phone that I had discarded. I lay down on the seat in the parlour downstairs while they turned everything upside down on the ground floor.
“When they finished downstairs, they demanded that I should show them the rooms on the next floor. Again I had to lie down on the seat in the room, while they turned everything upside down. I had to go to another seat when they wanted to upturn the seat I occupied. One of them saw the sum of forty thousand naira (N40,000.00) and one thousand naira notes in one of the drawers. He was excited and called their lead who saw the money and said ‘this is not the kind of money we came to pick.’ They left the N40,000.00.
“In the next bedroom, I lay on the bed out of sight of the wardrobe from which they brought some boxes and brief cases and travelling bags. All the bags and briefcases and travelling bags except one contained only magazines, papers and some old clothing. Some were empty. Only one small bag was locked with a padlock and this was the only bag that contained money. They directed me to come over and remove the padlock. I retrieved the key from the side pocket of the bag and removed the padlock and returned to my bed. They put the bags together by the toilet door. They called me again and asked me whether the bags were my property and I answered they were my property.
“None of the bags were opened in my presence nor in the presence of my housemaid who was the only person in the house with me at all material times.
“Some of them stayed in the room while I took them to my study. At this time, I became very dizzy and I had to return to lie down on a seat in the parlour and a man with a gun and a face mask stood over me while I dozed. He followed each time I went to the toilet. Another one followed my housemaid each time I asked her for water. There was no way out of the house.
“They were at all doors. Those searching and those outside the house went into the house through the main door, kitchen door and back doors. They went in and out of every room, including the room in which the bags were kept. I dozed intermittently but my house girl was kept sitting on the steps and was able to observe them coming through the kitchen door but she could not see those who came from back doors, took the second steps and went in and out of the rooms on the upper floor.
“After many hours, they came down to the sitting room downstairs and told me they were going to bring down the bags.
“I was speechless when I saw them bringing out huge bundles of different currencies from the bags that had contained only magazine papers and old clothes and some were empty. Some were contained in multi-coloured plastic bags which they tore and discarded. They put the money in different bags and brief cases and then proceeded to count a large amount of N5, N10, N20 and N50 notes, which were the change I returned each time I went to shop over the years. They kept waking me up to ask how I came about the small denomination of naira notes. No one asked me any question about the huge sums of money they put in the bags.
“One of them came to where I was lying down and ordered me to sit up. One of the gun men, who stood a few feet from me, came and stood next to me with his gun drawn. I was ordered to sign a paper which they said contained a list of what they were taking away. Confronted with the life-threatening situation, I made an instant mental decision that it was better for me to comply with their orders and stay alive to tell my story rather than get shot and killed on the pretext that I attacked them or that I tried to escape. I signed the paper and wrote my name as ordered. No one told me what offence I was alleged to have committed. No one told me of any petition or allegation against me.
The only bag that contained money was the small bag I locked with a padlock which I unlocked when ordered to do so. The bag contained the sum of $25,000, £10 and a brown envelope containing the sum of N710,000 which was a monthly allowance paid to me for September 2016. In the brief case, which I carry to my office daily, I had the sum of N300,000 and some loose change. The above are the only sums of money taken from me along with my phones, papers and other household items.
“I do not know how they came about the huge sums of money I saw for the first time in my parlour on the early hours of Saturday, 8th October, 2016. The various sums of money alleged to have been recovered from me were said to be in the social media in the early hours of Saturday, 8th October, 2016 when the invaders were yet to complete their search.”
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