Onyekachi Eze Spokesperson of the Coalition of United Political Parties (CUPP), Ikenga Ugochinyere, yesterday said he would not abandon the fight to challenge the planned passage of the Control of Infectious Diseases Bill by the House of Representatives. Ugochinyere, who regained freedom on Monday after four days in captivity, said the arrest made him stronger and determined to continue the fight.
“Soresolutethatevenwitha gun on my head, I cannot abandon the struggle,” he added. The CUPP spokesperson said he was arrested last Thursday after he attended a meeting at the headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to regularise the schedules of Edo and Ondo governorship primaries of his party, the Action Peoples Party (APP). Ugochinyere blamed his travails on the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila and Clerk of the House, whom he accused of forwarding a resolution of the House to the police for his arrest. He said no warrant of arrest was shown to him by the police before his arrest, adding that he had challenged the setting up of an ad-hoc committee by the speaker against whom he made the comments as the law forbids the speaker to be a judge in his own case.
Ugochinyere explained that courts granted certain orders, including restraining the police from arresting or detaining him in any manner by the Inspector-General of Police. “Despite that these orders were served on the House and the police, they both, in flagrant disobedience authored the petition and arrested me.
“When I was asked to make my cautionary statement by the police, I wrote that there was a valid and subsisting order of court, which I would not aid them to violate as their act of arresting me was unlawful and illegal. “My lawyers obtained a further order of the FCT High Court, which ordered my unconditional release from the illegal detention of the police. “Also Abuja Chief Magistrate Court before whom the police arraigned me, granted me bail the conditions of which I have perfected and here we are,” he said. Ugochinyere appreciated Nigerians, the media, his team of lawyers and others who assisted him during his trying times and those who made statements calling on the Inspector-General of Police to obey the law.
