Rivers: We Were Offered N200M To Implicate Fubara’s CoS As Mastermind Of Assembly Fire

The individuals—Chime Ezebalike, Kenneth Kpasa, Oladele Lukman, and MacPherson Olumini—were acquitted in November 2024 after spending roughly six months at the Kuje Correctional Centre.
Four concerned persons that were detained over the fire outbreak at the Rivers State House of Assembly have revealed very disturbing and discomforting allegations that they were put under intense pressure to falsely implicate Hon Edison Ehie, the Chief of Staff to the suspended Governor of Rivers State, Sir Siminalayi Fubara.

The four persons namely; Chime Ezebalike, Kenneth Kpasa, Oladele Lukman, and MacPherson Olumini, who were discharged and acquitted in November 2024 after spending about six months at the Kuje Correctional Centre, said that after the torture and false accusations against them, they would never be part of such wicked and deceitful schemes.

They told journalists at press conference in Port Harcourt, that one of the prominent leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) from Obio/Akpor Local Government Area approached them to change their original statements.

Ezebalike, who led the other three, said that they were instructed to name Edison Ehie as the orchestrator of the Assembly fire.

Three of the four persons who appeared publicly on camera, stressed that the attempt to coerce them was tied to a broader political agenda, seemingly intended to support earlier claims made by the former Head of Service of Rivers State, Dr George Nwaeke at what appeared like a media event in Abuja.

In the words of Ezebalike; “We were told to rewrite our statements and falsely accuse Edison Ehie of masterminding the arson.

“Beyond the fire incident, the plotters also want us to link Ehie to the brutal murder of DPO Bako Angbashim in Ahaoda, and the alleged assassination attempt on House Speaker Martins Amaewhule”.
Recounting their harrowing experience, the men disclosed that they were made to suffer unduly, tortured, denied legal rights, and coerced into signing confessions under duress beginning from December 2023.

The also alleged that a member of the State House of Assembly personally visited them with a police officer and mounted pressure on them to implicate Ehie, and when they refused to cooperate, they were subjected to untold beatings and starvation.

They alleged that they were offered ₦200 million and relocation abroad by a former local government chairman in exchange for their cooperation, adding that the inducements allegedly continued during their detention in Abuja.

They further claimed that others detainees were promised freedom if they can frame and implicate one of them, Kenneth Kpasa, as the arsonist.

The four therefore called on civil society organisations, the media, and all justice-seeking Nigerians to rise against the misuse of state institutions.

Ezebalike said; “This country belongs to all of us. No citizen should be tortured or blackmailed into telling political lies”.