Woman accuses EFCC of killing her husband in detention

Six hours after her husband died in the custody of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC), a woman simply identified as Susanne has accused the government agency of plotting the death of her husband.

Susanne said her late husband who was the Chief Protocol Officer of the Minister of State for Defence, Mr. Desmond Nunugwo, was labeled a criminal while in custody.

She informed that she called her husband’s phone repeatedly without no response as his phone was switched off and later got to know that her husband was pronounced dead six hours after 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.

“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 moments after she was told to go get a man to accompany her to make findings about her husband on her arrival at the agency’s office, the EFCC issued a statement announcing the death of her husband.

“The EFCC called me to their office to come and bail my husband while he was already at the mortuary.

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“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.”

Susanne said her husband was arrested due to a petition written by one of his business associates identified as Uloma.

Continuing, 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.”

Amaechi Ihezie, nephew to the deceased, said when he visited the EFCC office, he was told by investigators 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 a hospital where he was confirmed dead,” he added.

Alleging a cover-up in the case in a petition addressed to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), Mr. Paul Edeh, lawyer to the family, said all those in detention with Desmond on the day he died had been released so that there would be no witnesses.

“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.” The petition read in part.

In its response, the EFCC through a statement by its spokesman Mr. Wilson Uwujaren said 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.

“He convinced her of their disposition to help her stockfish business and consequently, she allegedly wired 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”. The statement by the EFCC read in full.

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