A trial court in Owerri, imo statusgranted bail to four sisters who were hastily prosecuted and sent to prison in the state under disputed circumstances.
PREMIUM TIMES reported how the sisters were arrested earlier this month, along with their brother, Solomon Ohadoma, and a yet-to-be-identified resident over a civil case.
They were hastily processed and sent to prison within hours while being denied access to a lawyer.
His parents were not aware of the accusation.
Hasty arrest and indictment
Some policemen went to a compound where the family lives, apparently to arrest Mr. Ohadoma, who allegedly seized a mobile phone from an as-yet-unidentified man in the area who was in debt to him.
The officers arrested Mr. Ohadoma and his four sisters, as well as a resident who was filming the officers beating one of the sisters.
The five siblings and the resident were hastily arraigned in the Owerri Magistrate Court and remanded in custody at the Owerri Correctional Center on March 10.
PREMIUM TIMES noted that the arrest of the suspects, their prosecution, and their transfer to prison occurred in less than 24 hours.
Bail for the four sisters and the resident
A court hearing on the matter was set for April 5 but was rescheduled for March 22 following appeals by the family of the suspects.
However, the case was subsequently paralyzed due to the absence of the magistrate on the rescheduled date, this newspaper learned.
Another date, April 29, was set for the case.
Benjamin Ohadoma, brother of the suspects, told PREMIUM TIMES that his mother broke down in tears in the courtroom, complaining that the postponed date was too long.
As a result, the court clerk quickly called the magistrate and then announced that the matter would be heard the next day, which was March 23.
In the resumption of the hearing, the magistrate granted bail to the four sisters but rejected their brother’s request for bail. The resident was granted bail.
Ohadoma, whose bail request was rejected by the magistrate, was charged with alleged robbery, assault on police officers, conspiracy and disorderly conduct, while his sisters were charged with alleged assault on police officers, his family said.
The hearing has been adjourned to April 29 and Mr. Ohadoma is likely to remain in the prison facility until then.
“I spoke to him yesterday. He was complaining about poor nutrition in prison and many other problems,” Ohadoma’s brother, Benjamin, told PREMIUM TIMES.
Background
One of the conflicted sisters, Ms. Ohadoma, on March 9 raised the alarm that her 29-year-old brother, Mr. Ohadoma, was being harassed by some police officers.
“Please I need help this police officer is shooting my brother in broad daylight,” he said in the Twitter post, which was accompanied by a video clip of the incident.
In the 15-second clip, some armed police officers are seen beating up Ohadoma.
As the supporters tried to protect the victim from the beating, one of the officers appeared to be threatening them, the supporters, and cocking his rifle.
“You are shooting bullets at my own brother,” Ms Ohadoma was heard yelling at one of the officers in a mix of Igbo and English.
Ms Ohadoma, in a separate Twitter post, recounted how the incident started.
She said her brother, a construction engineer, was hired to handle a project he completed. But the yet-to-be-identified man she hired her brother allegedly refused to pay him after he completed the project.
She said that a few days after he promised to transfer the money to her brother’s bank account, the man directed him to someone else who said he would pay him the money. But the person also did not pay the money, according to Ohadoma.
Frustrated, Mr. Ohadoma went back to the man, the debtor, and grabbed his phone, insisting that he would only return it when his money had been paid.
Ms Ohadoma said some of the man’s friends warned her and her brother to return the phone because the man has “connections” to police in the state and would likely use the police against him.
Subsequently, the debtor invited the officers to arrest Mr. Ohadoma, accusing him of stealing his phone.
But when the officers allegedly began beating Mr. Ohadoma, his brothers, the four sisters, and supporters tried to protect him from the beating.
Accordingly, the officers arrested Mr. Ohadoma and his four sisters and the resident for assault and hastily charged them before the Owerri Magistrate Court, which sent them to prison.