Outrage as court grants detained Port Harcourt lawyer N10m bail

By Peters Monday, Abuja

Outrage as a High Court in Abuja has granted Kevin Okorie, a lawyer first illegally detained by the Nigerian Navy in Rivers State on September 10 before being transferred to Abuja, a N10 million bail. Family sources confirmed this development on Friday.

Newsmen earlier reported how some Nigerian Navy personnel from Aker Base, Port Harcourt, the Rivers capital, had arrested Okorie alongside Jeffrey Agogoh and Udo, his friends, in September.

It was learnt that the three men were arrested without any known charges against them or an explanation from the naval authorities.

Speaking with FIJ on Friday, Okorie’s wife Esther and a male relative said that they got information that Okorie had been charged before a high court in the FCT and granted bail.

Given that there are two categories of high courts in the country’s capital, Esther could not say whether it was a Federal High Court or High Court of the FCT that granted Okorie bail.

“I got a call this morning that he has been granted bail,” Esther told FIJ on the phone.

“It was his university classmate who called me. He said the bail conditions are a grade level 14 civil servant resident in the FCT and N10 million in the like sum.

“We still remain concerned as to what his exact offence is. Why are they prosecuting him without giving the family a chance to hire a lawyer for him? He is not a criminal and we know he has not committed any crime.

“It seems they are prosecuting him secretly. As I speak with you, we don’t know how to proceed to meet his bail conditions.”

She also said that after FIJ’s earlier report, the security institution denied being responsible for the arrest.

However, FIJ found no public statement from the navy to that effect on all its social media handles at press time.

While the navy continued to maintain silence publicly on the matter, the family had been told that Okorie was being detained at the Defence Intelligence Agency’s (DIA) headquarters.

However, Brigadier General Tukur Gusau, the defence headquarters spokesperson, declined to comment when FIJ contacted him on Friday. Instead, he asked FIJ to “call the navy’s spokesperson”.

In an earlier report, Okorie’s wife had told FIJ that the men’s illegal detention might have been linked to their vocal support for the proposed creation of the National Coast Guard, an agency to be tasked with the protection of national waterways.

Before they were transferred to Abuja, Esther had visited her husband and given him food at the naval base. Even at that time, there was no official communication explaining the reason for his detention.

At press time, Commodore Aiwuyor Adams-Aliu, the naval spokesperson, did not answer his call and had not responded to a follow-up text message.