By Alltimepost.com
Human and Environmental rights Activist and Journalist, Comrade Tony Erha has cried out against alleged undue Police harassment and arrest, and accused Edo State Police Command of doing the biddings of Okomu Oil Company Plc Managing Director, Dr. Graham Hefer to unleash their attack on his person and community.
In a press release, made available to Alltimepost.com on Monday, titled:
SAVE ME FROM UNDUE POLICE HARASSMENT AND ARREST BY DR. GRAHAM HEFER AND OKOMU OIL PALM COMPANY PLC. NO TO APARTHEID ON EDO AND NIGERIAN SOIL!, Comrade Erha accused the Police of aiding Okomu Oil Company to continue to violate the rights of the people in the community where it operates.
Below is full text of the release:
On 19th August, 2016 several policemen bundled me to the Monitoring Unit of the Edo State Police Command, over a baseless allegation of authoring some “offensive” online news reports, “capable of causing the breech of public peace,” following a written petition and statement made to the Command by Dr. Graham Hefer, Managing Director of the Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc, on behalf of his company.
Whilst the Police went tough on me, over a very simple matter, upon which the almighty Dr. Hefer and his multinational firm, should ordinarily have taken a definite civil lawsuit option, they chose to
embarrass and intimidate an innocent soul, who fights for the good cause of the public, and waste the precious time of the Police on such misnomer.
More so, one would not stop wondering as to why the allegation would not be a misdirected witch hunt, especially as the online reports did not cause the alleged “breach of the public peace” about five long months after it was purported to have been made and when Dr. Hefer, the principal complainant made the petition and statement in early May, 2016.
It also calls for concern as to how a mere online publication could cause a public disorder, in rustic Orhua, Oke, Umokpe and Ekpan of Irhue Clan of Uhunmwode local government area of Edo State, the scene of the said online reports, where there is no electricity, roads and other social amenities; and the locals are all internet literates, who cannot access online.
But, there are many policemen in Edo State who usually (though unofficially) condemn the poorly and unbecoming conducts of Dr. Hefer, a foreigner and Managing Director to the multinational firm,
especially with his usual harassment of innocent Nigerians, through some unsuspecting policemen etc.
Is the Okomu Company bent that the Police must do its biddings to step on the people of Irhue Clan simply because it has donated to it some vehicles and amenities etc., some of which were given to the Ehor Divisional Police, ostensibly to force Irhue Clan (under Ehor police jurisdiction) into relinquishing the land to Okomu Company?
Why is it that the Police is readily prone to arresting and harassing those opposed to the willful seizure of the disputed forest of Irhue Clan on such baseless allegations, by Dr. Hefer and Okumu Company,
whereas it continued to shield Dr. Hefer and the company, the original culprits, from being brought to book, over their unlawful acts of bulldozing Irhue farms along with priceless plants and animals on the
land Edo State Government has revoked, gazette and given back to the Irhue Clan, its original owners, even so Government has given the order for their arrests?
Are Dr. Hefer and Okomu Company actually above the law of the land?
The oppressive Apartheid policy may be assumed to have long been crushed in South Africa, Hefer’s country of migration, but is it rather obvious that he is determined to re-establish it in Nigerian
soil, and set a new Guinness Book of Record as the first Afrikaner (as white settlers in South Africa are called) to do so?
Pointedly, genuine stakeholders in the humanity will not be deterred by a cheap blackmail, in the determination to bring to book, the erring Dr. Hefer and Okomu Oil Palm Company Plc, over their heinous sins of illegal acquisition of the tens of thousands hectares of the Irhue’s high forest land, which it bought for billions of Naira from the middleman Hatman Company Ltd, whereas Iyayi Group of Company, who originally acquired it for regeneration, and had sold to Hatman Ltd for billions of Naira, paid peanuts or nothing for this land which belong to poor Nigerians.
Thanks
Comrade Tony Erha
Environmental Journalist; Forest Certifier with International
Tropical Timber Organisation; Nigerian National
Stakeholder of the United Nations Reduced
Emission on Deforestation & Degradation UN-REDD)
