
United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
The United Nations is to fly in food aid for up to a million people affected by the Ebola outbreak in West Africa.
According to the World Food Programme, an arm of the UN, the agency
is bringing in its own aircraft to make sure food gets through to
quarantined areas in Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone.
The organisation said it would come to the aid of these worst Ebola-hit countries due to the problem of food crisis there.
The WFP Spokesperson, Fabienne Pompey, said, “The restrictions on
movement in the most affected areas threatens food security. Commerce is
affected; people cannot get to their fields; and prices rise at the
markets; so the poorest have trouble feeding themselves.”
As a result of the Ebola outbreak, the WFP said it had already
started feeding several thousand people in the worst affected areas,
including the families of victims who have been quarantined, orphans,
old people and hunters hit by the ban on the sale of bush meat.
With several commercial carriers suspending flights to the region
because of the epidemic, she said the agency would start a new
humanitarian service on Saturday (today) with an aircraft based in
Conakry, Guinea which would link the capitals of the three countries.
She said two helicopters would also be brought in to deliver aid to the most isolated areas
Remember
Upper Class Hotel, situated on 8 Old Market Road, in the commercial
city of Onitsha , Anambra state that was demolished on the order of Mr
Peter Obi, the immediate past governor of the state, following the
discovery of human heads and ammunition inside one of the hotel rooms?
A
team of policemen from the dreaded Special Anti-Robbery Squad,SARS of
the Anambra State Police Command, Awkuzu, had stormed the hotel on
August 1, 2013, where the hotelier, Bonaventure Mokwe, his wife and
some of his employees among who was a PhD student of the Nnamdi Azikiwe
University were arrested , including the hotelier’s wife.
Bonaventure Mokwe
While
Mrs Mokwe was reportedly released hours later, her husband and his
employees reportedly remained in detention at SARS Akwuzu for 81 days
over alleged murder and unlawful possession of human heads and arms.
They were thereafter , arraigned at a magistrate court on a four-count
charge of conspiracy and murder, unlawful possession of two human heads
and two AK 47 rifles with rounds of live ammunition.
There was,
however, a twist in the whole detention and consequent demolition
exercise, following claims by Mokwe that the whole scenario was a set
up. The human skulls recovered in his hotel according to him were by
some persons he alleged the Police knew.
In addition, Mokwe stated that the said Nnalue Okafor,whom he was accused of killing by the Police,
was confirmed by his parents in a news paper publication, to have been arrested April last year
byoperatives of SARS Awkuzu and wondered why he would be accused of killing him in August.
Speaking
with journalists in Lagos, on what he described as injustice meted to
him, Mokwe posited that : “The general public now know that Mr Nnalue
Okafor, whom I was accused of killing by the Police was a front line
MASSOB member in charge of where they termed as barracks, at Silas Works
road , Fegge, Onitsha. He was arrested by the Police on April 29 near
his barrack and has not been sighted ever since. It was during the
period of supremacy tussle between MASSOB and another group called ‘Igbo
Youths’, a MASSOB faction that emerged for political purpose towards
the period of last Anambra State governorship election.
“All
these embarrassing scenarios in their investigation prompted the Anambra
state Attorney -General to send back the case file to Akwuzu SARS for
real investigation”, he said.
However, one year into the
demolition of his hotel, justice according to him had not prevailed.
Part of what the justice he expected was compesation from Anambra State
government for the demolition of the hotel which he said was built in
1976,when he was barely nine years , by his late father.
He blamed
the Police for the cause of injustice, as he accused them of knowing
the truth but failed to state it. For instance, Mokwe stated that the
man who planted the human skull in his hotel room had owned up but that
nothing had been done.
“My hotel demolition is over one year now
and not a single charge is pending against me. Why then was my hotel
illegally demolished? Manufacturing another case is certainly an option
but then again how did the first attempt play out? I am vigilant and
waiting in every corner.
That was why I was able to inform the
Inspector-General of Police recently that one principal participant in
the planting of the exhibits in my hotel room, a native of Onitsha
was detained at cell 5 Awkwuzu, SARS and has equally opened up on how
the set-up was organised. The principal suspect was one of the people I
mentioned in my petition that was never investigated”
Awkwuzu
SARS knows the name of every single person that participated in the
set-up. But arresting them will further compound the embarrassment of
the state government”
Torture in detention
“My
case would have been settled while I was detained at Awkuzu SARS.
Instead, in their attempt to save the state government the
embarrassment, SARS Awkuzu made a U-turn and set about
manufacturing evidence .That included the near death torturing of of my
land agent , Chibueze Ikemene, to append his signature to an already
written statement that I was responsible for the death of one Nnalue
Okafor.
I was taken to the back of of their torture chamber and my
trouser was taken off and wrapped around my neck,with a green rope
wrapped around it .They started pulling from both sides of my neck till I
fainted . My thumb print was then inserted in an already written
statement collaborating that of Chibueze Ikemene
But the
statement with my thumbprint and the one hand -written by myself after a
strong protest from my lawyers were both filed in court by the Police.
Which one will they rely on?
One incident stands out in
my mind during my ordeal. On our way to SARS Awkuzu , on August 1, 2013,
one of the operatives told me that ‘ I will kill you,whether your hands
are clean or not. If your hands are clean, may your blood be on me and
my children.”
Pacified
“When I was granted
bail by the High court, it was at the height of the Anambra State
governorship election and I was prevailed upon not to make public
statements and that I will be paid after the election. The election has
come and gone . My wife, Barr. Mrs N.J Mokwe sent several texts to the
former governor and nothing came out of it. Our mutual friends also
approached the former governor , yet nothing was done. He admitted to
have been misled by Onitsha natives but said that I should be grateful
that he did not allow Awkwuzu SARS to kill me. Contemporaries of my
late father that are household names in Onitsha city, not minding the
challenges of their age, also tried to make the former governor see
reason but he never bulged”
Appeal to Anambra state governor
Granted
that the hotel was demolished in error of judgement, who then takes
responsibility? I am using this opportunity to extend an olive branch
to the present Anambra State governor,Mr Willie Obiano and his
predecessor to lay my issue to rest by addressing it. What was done to
me because of motor park dispute between me and Onitsha natives also
offended God.
I see the present governor of Anambra state as a
person who may see reason to allow justice to reign by compensating me
for the hotel they demolished in error.”
- See more at: http://www.vanguardngr.com/2014/08/police-anambra-know-planted-human-heads-hotel-hotelier/#sthash.2K8N4PMT.dpuf