By Valentine Amanze, Online Editor
The crisis rocking the once peaceful community of Idumuje Ugboko in Delta State, took a turn for the worse last week with the purported arrest of a businessman and one of the community’s most prominent sons, Dr. Gabriel Ogbechie.
The social media was agog last week with the purported arrest of the oil magnate, Ogbechie, who is the Group Managing Director of Rainoil.
Ogbechie was said to have been arrested by the police and detained in Abuja following an allegation of a plot to assassinate another prominent son of the community, Prince Ned Nwoko, who has been having running battles with the Idumuje Ugboko community over land issues.
But Dr. Ogbechie who is still dazed over the news report says he cannot comprehend why anyone would concoct such lies against him other than “to embarrass and tarnish his reputation.”
TheNiche gathered that the petition alleging an assassination plot against Ned Nwoko, which led the police to invite Ogbechie for some clarification, an invitation which he honoured, was a consequence of a tales by moonlight WhatSapp chat between Nwoko’s wife, Regina Daniels, and an alleged prisoner.
A source who is privy to the petition said Prince Ned Nwoko narrated the sequence of events that led to his allegation thus:
1) He is from Idumuje Ugboko and he was allocated land on which he wants to build a University. The King , whom he referred to as Prince Nonso Nwoko, is not in support of the land allocation.
2) Due to some fracas in Idumuje Ugboko, two Idumuje Ugboko indigenes are in detention at the Kuje Prisons in Abuja.
3) A completely different prisoner whom Ned Nwoko mentioned by name, who was also in Kuje Prison, alleged that he overheard the two prisoners who are from Idumuje Ugboko saying that they plan to assasinate Ned Nwoko. The third prisoner known to Ned also stated that he overheard them saying that they are sponsored by an Oil Magnate.
4) According to Ned Nwoko, this third prisoner contacted Regina Daniels, one of Ned Nwoko’s wives and reported to her what he heard in prison.
5) Ned Nwoko stated in his petition that the only oil magnate he knows is Chief Gabriel Ogbechie who owns petrol station.
6) Ned Nwoko in the petition also alleged that there is a plan to compromise his own lawyer, not to plead his own case properly in court.
7) Ned Nwoko also attached a print out of the WhatsApp chats between the prisoner in Kuje Prisons and Regina Daniels and signed off on the petition himself.
But the allegation drama has thrown up some issues.
If it is true that there was indeed a telephone chat between the alleged prisoner and Ned Nwoko’s wife, how did the prisoner get the phone number of Regina Daniels? Are prisoners now allowed to use phones in Nigerian prisons?
Besides, if it is true the prisoner only said the assasination plot was being bankrolled by an oil magnate, why was Ogbechie’s name name dragged into the messy drama? Is he the only oil magnate in Nigeria?
And if it is true that a meeting was held as alleged to perfect this plot, where did the meeting hold and who are the other co-conspirators?
Ogbechie said these are the issues he pointed out to the police when he honoured their invitation.
“I pointed out to the police that I have absolutely no idea what Ned Nwoko was alleging,” he told TheNiche on Tuesday.
“Ned Nwoko and his wife, Regina Daniels, are in the best position to explain the relationship between Regina and a prisoner in Kuje Prisons. I wonder what relationship Regina Daniels has with a supposed prisoner to the extent of exchanging phone calls and WhatsApp messages.
“Besides, the so-called prisoner who is apparently an acquaintance of the Ned Nwoko family only alleged that he heard them mention an oil magnate. Therefore, the assertion that the oil magnate is Chief Gabriel Ogbechie is entirely that of Ned Nwoko,” he added.
Ogbechie who said the whole drama was an orchestrated plot to tarnish his image said he left the police within an hour of his arrival.
“And to underscore the point that it was an orchestrated plot to embarrass me, I had barely arrived at my house in Abuja when the WhatsApp message went out that I had been arrested and detained.
“That message was obviously prepared even before my decision to honour the police invitation, all in a bid to embarrass and tarnish my reputation.
“Why would the police arrest me over cock and bull story of an alleged assassination plot?”
Dr. Ogbechie insisted that he has no issues with Ned Nwoko other than the desire to ensure that peace returns to their ancestral home of Idumuje Ugboko.
