A rights group, the Centre for Victims of Extra_Judicial Killings and Torture, CVEKT AFRICA, have petitioned President Umoru Yar’Adua to urgently intervene in the  trial of the suspect who allegedly kidnapped and murdered a Chinese national, Mr Feng Shyenyi in the factory of a motor cycle manufacturing company, Innoson group in Nnewi in 2007.

Group frowns at selective justice

The group in a petition alleged that there is a well calculated attempt by some influential persons to ensure that the leading figure in the kidnap saga, an Nnewi based businessman(names withheld) was not prosecuted. It further said that while the leader of the kidnap gang, Mr Innocent Orji and his members, have been facing prosecution and trial in Awka, the same is not the case with the suspected leader  who was reasonably implicated in the confession of the kidnappers.

It would be recalled that Shyenyi was kidnapped on March 17, 2007, along side another Chinese national, Eric Niu Guiqiang, and a Nigerian, Sylvester Unigwe, who were working in the factory. But while Guiqiang and Unigwe were lucky to be freed by the kidnappers after a ransom of N10m was paid by  Chief Innocent Chukwuma, founder of the Innosson group, Feng, as he was popularly called, was not lucky. He died in a  thick forest in Ekoli Eddah, Afikpo in Ebonyi State, where he was taken to.

Orji was arrested on May 29 this year by the police where he confessed to the crime and has since been remanded in Police custody while the case is being prosecuted.   But CVEKT AFRICA in the petition is alleging that the suspected leader has been shielded from involvement in the case by powerful forces.

It therefore wants the NSA to intervene in the matter.  Part of the petition read:   “We believe that the Nnewi kidnap story is not a new or strange one to your office, the issue having been a household one in the media for some two years running.

As a quick reminiscence on the matter, it is all about the celebrated and protracted case of the kidnap of two expatriate (Chinese) staff and one indigenous staff of Innoson Group, Nnewi on March 17, 2007 from the premises of the Innoson Motor Assembly plant in Nnewi by a gang of criminals operating under the guise of Movement for the Actualization of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB).

Following the refusal by the kidnappers to let the foreigners go after several months, a joint team of the military invaded their forest hideout at Ekoli Edda, Ebonyi State and made some arrests and rescued one of the Chinese while the hoodlums escaped with the second Chinese.”

The group further added that attempts to bring the top businessman to answer to his involvement in the matter have so far proved abortive, arguing,  “What has remained a puzzle and cause of worry to the Nigerian public, South East in particular, is the fact that nearly six months after the initial police arrest of Chief Ogbuawa and his subsequent bail, the said Ogbuawa has up till now continued to walk the streets freely while his partners in the kidnap crime are under detention and prosecution.”
Soon after Orji’s confession, a delegation of Chinese nationals made a representation to CVEKT Enugu Headquarters seeking justice over the fate of their Kinsman as well as guarantee of security in Nigeria . They threatened to flee the country en masse in the absence of a determined action on the part of the Nigerian authorities to bring the culprits in the death of their kinsman to book as a way of assuring them of Nigeria’s ability to guarantee their future safety in Nigeria, what with confirmed death of one of the expatriate staff and obvious implication it could have not only on the image of the country.”

CVEKT wondered that “It is indeed puzzling and curious that up till now, Chief Ogbuawa, a leading suspect in the kidnap case has continued to walk the streets freely neither appearing in court with others nor arrested by the police, a situation that so glaringly questions and mocks the impartiality of the law.”

It prayed the NSA to use his good office to ensure that all the people connected with the kidnap saga were brought to book appropriately to not only ensure justice for the dead but also to boost the confidence of the Chinese who are doing business in Nigeria.

“We therefore,  pray your office to ensure that the police and all other agencies of government involved in the handling of the case at hand do their job by effecting the immediate and proper arraignment.”

Birth of the group

CVEKT was established by some 18 journalists in 2001 as a Non_governmental, voluntary and non_profit humanitarian and human rights foundation in memory of the late journalist and publisher of the NEWS SERVICE magazine, Comrade Polycarp Okezie, who was murdered in cold blood on the 28th August 1998 in Enugu while on assignment.

Calling on the relevant security agencies to provide adequate security for the South East region, the group urged that “ we feel highly obliged to lend our voice to those of the Nigerian populace, South East in particular in soliciting the protection of the Federal government, through the office of the NSA in the wake of the new trend kidnap crime which is threatening to grind business, social and political activity in the South to a halt, what with top businessman, politicians and other high placed members of the society fleeing with their families to escape being victims of this daily crime.”