Susanne, the
widow of the Chief Protocol Officer to the Minister of State for Defence, Mr.
Desmond Nunugwo, has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission,
EFCC, of killing her husband and labelling him a criminal.
The widow at
the weekend recalled that she called her husband’s phone repeatedly but it was
switched off as she did not know he was in EFCC’s custody in Wuse 2, Abuja.
“Around 3pm on
June 9, my husband had gone to pick up our son from school and they both
returned home. He later went out. Around 6pm, I called his line and it rang
once. I tried his number several times later, but it was off,” Susanne told
Punch.
“The next
morning, I got apprehensive when he didn’t come home. However, around 3.48pm,
someone called me with his phone and said my husband was in the EFCC’s custody
and I should come to bail him.”
Susanne said
on getting to the EFCC, she was told to go and get a man because being a woman,
her husband could not be released on bail to her.
She said, “The
EFCC later called me to their office to come and bail my husband while he was
already at the mortuary.
“I later
received a phone call from a former colleague of mine that he had read the news
online that my husband was arrested for fraud and he had died.”
The widow said
she was informed that her husband’s arrest was sequel to a petition written by
one Uloma, his business associate.
Susanne said,
“She (Uloma) told the EFCC that she met my husband on a flight in 2012 when he
was on his way to the US where I went to give birth. She said my husband
introduced her to a third party with whom she did a N91m transaction.”
Susanne
berated the EFCC for labelling her husband a fraudster even after causing his
death, adding that the anti-graft agency must clear his name.
The nephew of
the deceased, Amaechi Ihezie, also told Punch that when he visited the EFCC,
investigators told him that Desmond slumped and died.
“The EFCC told
me that before he died, he wrote a statement of four pages. They gave him his
phone to make calls for about two hours and then nobody came to bail him and so
they said they transferred him to their head office and that a few hours later,
he started to complain of discomfort and slumped. They said he was rushed to
the hospital and confirmed dead,” he added.
In a petition
addressed to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami
(SAN), the lawyer of the family, Mr. Paul Edeh, alleged a cover-up in the case.
The petition
partly read, “The EFCC has blatantly refused that a post-mortem examination
should be carried out on the body so as not to be indicted. This may have been
the reason why more than two months after Desmond’s death, no move has been
made to carry out an autopsy.
“After many
visits by our clients to the EFCC and the police, both agencies have maintained
that Desmond died a natural death. One, therefore, wonders how both the police
and the EFCC could come up with such a common position in the absence of a
medical examination to determine the cause of death.”
EFCC had said
in a statement by its spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, that the deceased
allegedly fraudulently obtained N91m from an acquaintance after he tricked her
into believing that he had high net worth business associates in Dubai, who
were on the verge of buying NICON Insurance, and convinced her of their
disposition to help her stockfish business.
She then
allegedly transferred N91m into an account, Mainage General Merchants, in
Diamond Bank.
“After the
transfer of the funds, he became evasive forcing the complainant to report to
the EFCC. Consequently, he was arrested in Utako, Abuja, at about 5.33pm on
Thursday, June 9, 2016.
“He admitted
to receiving the money from the complainant, with the additional information
that he transferred N30m of the said money to Norway. But he could not explain
the whereabouts of the balance of N61m.
“The suspect
was detained at about 7.30pm, in the absence of anybody to take him on bail.
Six hours later, he suddenly complained of discomfort and was rushed to the
hospital where he was pronounced dead.”
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