Majority Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly, Chidi Lloyd is already going blind in police custody, Deputy Speaker of the House, Leyii Kwanee has said.
Speaking in Port Harcourt at the weekend, Kwanee lamented that despite his condition, his colleagues have not be allowed to see him.
“Chidi Lloyd was blindfolded. He was tortured and tear-gas was spread all over him,” he said. “As I speak to you, some of us have been refused access to him. We have been informed that Chidi Lloyd is going blind, occasioned by the tear-gas that was thrown all over him, particularly on his eyes. Medical help has been refused also to him.”
He implored the Police and the politicians instigating Lloyd’s travails to consider the many conventions and treaties on human rights that Nigeria is signatory to, saying a team of legal experts would be contacted to compile a comprehensive account of all human rights abuses inflicted on Lloyd.
“Chidi Lloyd was blindfolded. I am not saying what I don’t know. The facts are there,” he added.
“One of us who accompanied him from Abuja said as soon as they approached OPM Church along G.U. Ake Road, Port Harcourt, the vehicle they were in was stopped and they waited there for 15 minutes and shortly after that, a Black Maria was brought where Chidi Lloyd was dragged out of the vehicle and pushed into the Black Maria, blindfolded and tortured.”
In a separate act of solidarity, the 25 lawmakers loyal to Amaechi issued a joint statement to demand information on the whereabouts of the majority leader and to hold Mbu liable for any harm to him.
“Is Mbu aware of Chidi Lloyd’s medical history? This calculated poisoning of Chidi Lloyd reminds us of the assumed circumstances leading to the death of our one-time Senate President, Dr. Chuba Okadigbo,” a part of the statement read.
“Why the blindfold? He is only alleged to have committed an offence. He is not a terrorist, and he is neither an armed robber nor a kidnapper. He is a representative of Emohua Constituency of Ikwerre Ethnic nationality at the Rivers State House of Assembly and a legal practitioner who will stand for truth and justice even when the truth is too much for those bent on destroying our hard-earned democracy with unnecessary impunity.
“We genuinely fear for the life of the Leader of the Rivers State House of Assembly whose present whereabouts remain unknown and whose only offence is that he defended democracy and its values. We condemn in entirety the role of the Police Commissioner, Mbu Joseph Mbu, as we search for peace in our state and call on Nigerians to be prayerful as their scripts are re-written.”
But responding, Chairman of the Rivers State People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Felix Obuah accused Governor Chibuike Amaechi of scheming to thwart Lloyd’s prosecution for attempted murder of his colleague, Michael Chindah. He sensationally revealed Amaechi had directed the state attorney-general to prevent Lloyd’s prosecution.
“Amaechi, who has never cared to visit Chindah in the hospital or offer any assistance or condolence to him or his family, is hell-bent on frustrating the prosecution of Lloyd through the state Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice, Worgu Boms,” he wrote in a statement issued by his media adviser, Jerry Needam, Obuah.
“The governor is comfortable with the life-threatening harm that Lloyd caused Chindah. If Governor Amaechi desires peace, he would have gone to see the badly battered lawmaker and shown concern for the sake of humanity but instead of that, he is plotting that the attorney-general of the state should enter a nolle prosequi to terminate the criminal proceedings to be commenced against Honourable Lloyd.
“Such an action will not only be morally wrong but amounts to an abuse of office and miscarriage of justice. It will heighten bitterness and provoke the sympathisers and relatives of Honourable Chindah who may be forced to believe that the action of Honourable Lloyd was not an accident but planned and masterminded by the governor and Lloyd.
“Irrespective of what has happened, it is inhuman and absolutely wrong for the governor to be blocking the due process of justice in such a highly sensitive case where a lawmaker would have murdered another on the floor of the House as was shown on television.”
