Wife Raises the Alarm over Husband’s Deteriorating Health in SFU Detention

Wale Igbintade

The wife of a detained businessman, Mr. Ignatius Ukpaka, has raised the  alarm over the deteriorating health of her husband in custody of the Special Fraud Unit (SFU) over a civil dispute pertaining to a landed property in Banana Island, which a Lagos State High Court has declared him owner.

Addressing a press conference in Lagos, Mrs. Uche Ukpaka disclosed that the Police arrested her husband who is suffering an underlying ailment in Lagos on March 8, 2022, under the pretext of executing a warrant of arrest.

She stated that the current charge is the third time the federal government is bringing charges against her husband before the Federal High Court in Lagos, adding that two similar criminal charges over the ownership of disputed property were struck out by the court.

Mrs. Ukpaka stated that the federal government had brought a criminal charge over the land before the Federal High Court in 2014 against her husband and that the court declared the charge illegal, unconstitutional and discharged him.

She further stated that surprisingly, the federal government in 2018 brought another criminal charge over the same land against her husband and the court in 2019 similarly dismissed the charge declaring it unconstitutional and unlawful, and also discharged her husband.

Mrs. Ukpaka said that to settle the issue of the ownership of the land, the husband sued the federal government and Nigeria Deposit Insurance Corporation, NDIC(NDIC) at Lagos High Court.

She added that after five  years of litigation, with all parties represented, the Lagos High Court presided over by Justice Oyekan-Abdullahi in her judgment delivered in September 2020 declared the husband and his company, owners of the disputed land and ordered the FG to facilitate their perfection of title documents of the land.

She stated that the FG, in violation of rule of law, refused to abide by the judgment of the Lagos State High Court and two other judgments of the Federal High Court and has now brought a criminal charge for the  third time on the same land before the Federal High Court.

She said: “In further breach of the rights of my husband without serving him any notice of the new criminal charge, policemen from the SFU under the instruction of the complainant, NDIC, stormed my husband’s office on March 8, 2022, forcefully took him away, detained him in their cell and forcibly brought him to court on March 9, 2022, under a warrant of arrest that stated that he didn’t come to court on November 26, 2021, when the court didn’t even sit.

“On March 9 2022 when he was brought to court, the court also did not sit but the police refused to let my husband go and are still detaining him in their cell. It is surprising what an ordinary Nigeria citizen is going through for owning a landed property which agents of the Federal Government are interested in.”

Warning that the FG  would be held to account if anything happens to her husband, Mrs. Ukpaka said:“My husband has serious health issues and despite our appeals to the Police to release him since no court order was issued for his detention, they have continued to detain him. It is clear that the FG has no regard for the court so we are warning that those illegally detaining him on the order people from ‘above’ will be held reliable if anything happens to him.”