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I was kidnapped for refusing to sell land – Anambra community leader
A community leader and Vice Chairman of Obunagu Achalla village in Enugu Agidi community in Njikoka Local Government Area of Anambra State, Ozo Ozoemena Okeke, has alleged a plot by some of his kinsmen to kill him saying he was kidnapped twice because he refused to sell community lands.
He stated this when he spoke with journalists at his country home in Obunagu Achalla, on Sunday.
According to him, the incident has led to his kidnapping twice between 2023 and 2024, saying that it was God who saved his life, apart from the payment of ransoms to the suspected kidnappers.
Okeke disclosed that it was the evil scheme of four of his kinsmen allegedly working in secret alliance with suspected kidnappers to eliminate him by all means for being a stumbling block to their grand design to continue to appropriate parts of the land and sell the same to highest bidders while the community and its people continued to wallow in abject poverty.
He said, “My first experience was on October 17, 2023. It was the initial period the road in front of my house was being graded, which they claimed that I sold the land to someone, but I did not sell any land.
“Thinking that I had sold a piece of land, these people invited kidnappers to kidnap me so that I would bring out the money suspected to be paid for the land.
“I think this set of suspected kidnappers are poor because they collected all my foodstuff including garri, palm oil, salt among others. They discovered I had only N22.00 in my bank account through phone and no other bank accounts.
“They wondered where the money they claimed that I realised from the land should be. They concluded it was a mere allegation and I was freed.”
“The second invasion was in August 2024. After the peace meeting with my people, the kidnappers invaded my house again around 4 pm that fateful day and took me into the bush to Urum in the Awka North local district before proceeding towards one shrine in Ukwulu. I stayed three days before they released me.”
But in a swift reaction when contacted, the Chairman of Obunagu-Achalla in Enugwu Agidi Community, Emeka Ementa, denied any link with suspected kidnappers that kidnapped Okeke at any given time nor any knowledge about the incident.
He admitted that the community at a meeting under his leadership agreed to suspend and ostracise Okeke and others for their sabotage of the corporate existence of the community by aligning with the Ezinano Awka community on the controversial peace deal with Obunagu-Achalla village in Enugwu Agidi Community over their land.
“Well, I don’t have any contact with any kidnap syndicate, I don’t even intend to. I am only saying that he(Okeke) should change his way of life; he has been known for this over the years.
“The community only took normal cautions to suspend him from our meetings and other activities. The decision was taken at a general meeting, not personal to me. So, I wouldn’t think and I never thought about that. Why would I kidnap him, for what?
“I have never heard of this kidnap of a thing. It is him forging this kidnap thing. It’s like a drama to me; it’s a forgery and I have not heard of it anyway. But Okeke has been known for this kind of behaviour.”
On the question of the ancestral relationship between Ezinano Awka and Enugwu Agidi people over the land in dispute, Ementa explained, “The land is called Agu-Nawgu because Nawgu people were living there before and were part of it.
“After Nawgu was removed by the six communities of Awka, Isu, Enugwu Agidi, Nawfia, Amawbia and I think Okpuno. It’s a land got after a conquest and shared into six, everybody has theirs. Awka has its own and so are other communities.
“So, a major part of that land is where the Awka people are now contesting with us in court. The whole of that land, part of which is our ancestral land, they are joining both the ancestral land and that of Nawgu to the place they are dragging with us in court.
“The court in its unanimous decisions gave it to us in three court sessions, the Awka court, High Court and the Appeal Court.
“We are now asking the state government to use its good offices to intervene because Enugwu-Agidi has suffered so much.”
Japa on reverse lane as the United States Department of Homeland Security, DHS, has updated its list of Nigerians facing removal from the country, reducing the number to 112 and publishing their names and photographs online.
The latest list features Nigerians from different parts of the country and was published through the DHS official website.
Among those listed are Cletus Onyali, Olaolu Alabi, Marcus Unigwe, Mkpouto Etukudoh, Blessing Uchanma, Olaniyi Ojikutu, Richard Ugbah, Oluwamuyiwa Olawoye, Anthony Asanya and Ebele Agbasiele
Others identified on the list include Izuchukwu Okoye, Olufemi Olufisayo Olutiola, Abiemwense Obanor, Chibuzo Nwaonu, Oluchi Jennifer Chimdimma Chime, Ifeanyi Okoro, Oluwaseun Kassim, Quazeem Adeyinka and Talatu Dada.
The complete list contains 112 names, with the photographs and details of the other individuals available through the DHS online portal.
The publication comes amid stepped-up immigration enforcement by the US government, particularly involving undocumented immigrants and individuals with outstanding removal orders.
It also comes against the backdrop of efforts by US authorities to obtain increased cooperation from foreign governments in receiving their nationals who have been ordered to leave the United States.
Nigeria has previously faced pressure from the US over the repatriation of its nationals subject to deportation.
The updated publication provides public access to the identities and photographs of the Nigerians currently identified by DHS for removal from the United States.
The Department of State Services, DSS, on Thursday re-arraigned five men accused of complicity in the May 15 kidnap of pupils and teachers in Oriire Local Government Area of Oyo State and the subsequent killing of two of the victims.
They were arraigned on a seven-count amended charge marked FHC/ABJ/CR/438/2026, filed by the DSS on behalf of the Federal Government.
The defendants, accused of being members of the Jama’atu Ansarul Muslimina fi-Biladis Sudan (ANSARU) terrorist group, are Mahmud Muhammad (aka Abu Bara’a, Abbas Mukhtar); Abubakar Abbas (aka Isah Adam, Mallam Mahmuda Al-Nigeri); Abdulrazak Umar (aka Abu Khalifa/Abu Khalid); Yunusa Musa (aka Abu Yunusa Bin Musa); and Shamsu Adamu Sani (aka Abu Itisar).
All five defendants, however, pleaded not guilty to the charges when they were read to them by the Registrar of the court.
The Director of Public Prosecutions of the Federation (DPPF), Mr Rotimi Oyedepo, SAN, who led the DSS legal team, applied for the immediate trial of the defendants in line with the provisions of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015.
He also applied for the names of witnesses lined up to testify in the trial to be shielded and for them to be permitted to wear masks to ensure their protection.
Following no objection from counsel to the defendants, Bala Dakum, Justice Salim Ibrahim granted the request of the DSS counsel.
At the time of filing this report, arrangements for the full-scale trial were being put in place.
LAGOS — A post-mortem examination conducted by the Department of Pathology and Forensic Medicine at the Lagos State University Teaching Hospital (LASUTH) has confirmed that 20-year-old journalist Pelumi Onifade died from a penetrating firearm injury to the abdomen.
The finding is contained in a six-page autopsy report dated July 30, 2026, and submitted to the Lagos State Coroner’s Court investigating the circumstances surrounding the young journalist’s death during the October 2020 #EndSARS protests.
According to the report, Onifade died from massive haemoperitoneum, a severe accumulation of blood in the abdominal cavity, caused by a high-velocity projectile that penetrated his abdomen.
The forensic finding provides medical evidence establishing a gunshot injury as the cause of death, while the circumstances surrounding who fired the shot and the events that followed remain matters before the coroner’s proceedings.
How Onifade Died
Onifade was a 200-level History student of Tai Solarin University of Education (TASUED) and worked as an intern reporter with Gboah TV, a Lagos-based online news platform.
On October 24, 2020, during the nationwide #EndSARS protests against police brutality, he was assigned to cover an attempted looting at a government palliative storage facility in the Abattoir area of Oko-Oba, Agege, Lagos.
According to accounts presented by his family and colleagues, Onifade was wearing a press jacket and carrying reporting equipment when officers attached to the Lagos State Task Force opened fire while attempting to disperse the crowd.
He was reportedly struck by a bullet and subsequently taken away in a police van, commonly referred to as a Black Maria.
A colleague who was with him at the scene reportedly attempted to identify him as a journalist and explain that he was carrying camera equipment, but those efforts were unsuccessful.
Onifade was not seen alive again after that incident.
Family Searched Police Stations, Hospitals
Following his disappearance, his family and colleagues searched police stations, detention facilities and hospitals across Lagos in an attempt to establish his whereabouts.
According to the family, police authorities denied having him in custody.
Six days later, on October 30, 2020, the family located his body at the mortuary of Ikorodu General Hospital, where it had been registered as a “brought-in-dead” case under body number 1385.
The discovery triggered years of demands for an independent investigation into how the young journalist died and how his remains ended up in the mortuary.
DNA Test Identified the Body
The identity of the body was subsequently confirmed through forensic DNA testing.
Results from the Lagos State DNA and Forensic Centre established a match between the unidentified body bearing tag number 1385 and reference samples obtained from Onifade’s parents.
The DNA confirmation provided a crucial breakthrough after years of uncertainty surrounding the whereabouts and identity of the missing journalist.
Court Ordered Coroner’s Inquest
The search for accountability later moved into the courts.
In July 2024, Justice Ayokunle Olayinka Faji of the Federal High Court in Lagos ordered the Lagos State Government and the police to conduct a coroner’s inquest into Onifade’s death.
The objective of the inquest is to establish the circumstances surrounding his death and determine the facts surrounding the actions of the security personnel involved.
The ongoing proceedings before the Lagos State Coroner’s Court are being presided over by Magistrate Temitope Oladele.
Following the submission of the post-mortem report, the court has directed key witnesses, including police personnel who were on duty in the Oko-Oba area on October 24, 2020, to appear and testify.
Rights Groups Demand Accountability
Media Rights Agenda (MRA), which has supported the Onifade family in its legal efforts, has described the post-mortem findings as significant evidence in the case.
Rights activists, journalist unions, and the deceased’s family continue to demand the public prosecution of the police officers who fired the shot and those who supervised the deployment during the Lagos #EndSARS demonstrations.
Japa on reverse lane as US releases names, photos of 112 Nigerians on deportation list
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Autopsy Confirms #EndSARS Journalist Pelumi Onifade Died From Gunshot Wound
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