The drama between a lawyer, Miss Chiamaka Nwangwu, and a Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Mrs. Jane Mbanefo, which started last week, is definitely not over.
If anything, more facts are crawling out as Nwangwu insisted that she was called several names, including being called a prostitute by Mbanefo and her men, before being beaten and then locked up in a police cell.
Mbanefo, however, countered Nwangwu, insisting that the lawyer was lying. She stressed that nobody touched the lawyer, let alone beat her.
Our correspondent gathered that the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) has already stepped into the matter and is presently carrying out an investigation.
Nwangwu said she was beaten by policemen at 3-3 Police Station, Onitsha, Anambra State, after she went to see a client. She also alleged that the NBA Chairman, Onitsha branch, Ikenna Okwudili, pressurised her into writing an apology letter to Mbanefo.
“I didn’t want to write the letter of apology, because I didn’t see reason to do that. I was the one that was abused,” she fumed.
Recollecting how the drama started, the lawyer said she was called from Abuja by a family friend to see about getting a client, Chukwudi, out of police detention. Chukwudi was arrested over an issue with his landlord.
Nwangwu explained that when she got to the station, the DPO was not around, but the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO) was on ground. She went to her client, and he narrated his ordeal. He also told her that he was in pains after his landlord bit him.
She said: “I told him that he should have gone to the hospital first. Human bites are serious issue. It was at this point that a huge woman there, whom I didn’t know was the DPO, asked if I was a lawyer and a doctor at the same time. She asked me to leave that axis. I obeyed. As I was walking out, some officers accosted me, and I heard the DPO ordering, ‘arrest that woman.’ They took me back to the station. The DPO started pushing me; others joined. They beat me, tore my clothes. I asked what my offence was; they said I came to teach them their job. One called me a prostitute. After beating me, they put me behind the counter. They later asked me to write a letter of apology to the DPO; that I went to her office to slap her. The DPO claimed I snatched her Walkie-Talkie from her.”
Nwangwu, who insisted that she was accused of a series of things, denied ever entering the DPO’s office.
She recounted: “While I was still arguing with them over writing a letter of apology, a fair complexioned female policewoman walked in and slapped me. They pushed me into the cell. I couldn’t make any call. I didn’t see my phone when I recovered my handbag. Even the money in my bag got missing. It was my client that got across to my mother.”
She said that while she was in the cell, she overheard the police allegedly attempting to intimidate Chukwudu into writing a statement against her.
“They asked him to write that I attacked the DPO, but the boy refused,” said Nwangwu.
According to her, it was after Okwudili met with Mbanefo that he and her mother pressured her into writing the letter. She said that the letter was written according to the dictate of the Investigating Police Officer (IPO).
She added: “Even while I was writing the letter behind the counter, the DPO came and asked why I should be allowed to be there. It was in the DCO’s office that I finally went to write the letter. It was dictated to me in the presence of my mother. It was only one police officer that understood the situation, but couldn’t do anything.
“I’m not the only lawyer that had experienced police brutality and intimidation in that station. There are six other lawyers who have had similar experiences.”
But Mbanefo denied that the lawyer was beaten.
She said: “We have the letter of apology, which she made in the presence of her mother who is a retired magistrate and her father. They came with the Onitsha branch chairman of NBA and another person. I called the NBA chairman after the lady started making a noise. I wanted to find out if she was truly a lawyer.
“Even when my officer was pulling her to leave my office, she resisted. My officer fell on me. Nobody came to hear from me except you (New Telegraph). People went to the social media and started blackmailing me without first hearing from me.”
The NBA, and the Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Garba Umar, have stepped into the matter.
The NBA Chairman, Okwudili, said: “I have submitted my own report to the body and will not speak on the matter until they come out with their findings and decisions.”
He, however, expressed displeasure with the way the saga was reported in the social media, insisting that it was blown out of proportion.
