How I Was Abducted By SARS – Daniel Elombah

On the 1st day of January 2018, operatives of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad, SARS, numbering about 15 stormed the Elombah family compound in Edoji Uruagu Nnewi, Anambra State and whisked away Daniel Elombah, a UK based lawyer and publisher with his brothers.

 

The men who struck around 5am on the New Year day were said to have climbed over the gate with their ladder and ransacked the entire house. At the end of the operation, 6 adult male members of the family including the UK based lawyer were handcuffed, herded into a bus and driven to the SARS office in Nnewi where they were briefly detained.

According to Daniel Elombah, no one explained to them the reason for their arrest thereby throwing the entire family including their aged mother, their wives and little children into great distress. He said that their repeated requests for the reason for their arrest were met with a terse, “you’ll be told at the station”.

He said from Nnewi that they were driven to the SARS Headquarters in Awkuzu, near Awka, again without being told the reason for their arrest. At the SARS State Headquarters, he narrated that they were handed over to a different set of four armed men who were later identified as officers from the Special Tactical Squad, STS – a crack team of operatives directly in the office of Nigeria’s Inspector General of Police.

 

At that juncture Daniel said that the STS team leader explained that the IGP personally ordered their arrest because his brother Tim Elombah, was accused of publishing an article on an online media, Elombah.com  which was allegedly aimed at blackmailing the IGP. He said they requested for details of the offending article but were told that they will be given the details in Abuja where they were being taken to. The STS team leader thereafter released 3 of his brothers who were told to find their way back home to Nnewi, while the other 3 namely: Daniel, Tim and Izuchukwu Elombah were herded in handcuffs into another bus after they were briefly interrogated.

The UK based lawyer said that at that point he repeatedly requested to be told the offense for which he was arrested but was ignored. The allegation against his brother Izuchukwu, a trader in Niger State was also not provided.

 

They reportedly left Anambra State and arrived at the STS Abuja office around 5pm.

 

Tim Elombah who is also the editor-in-chief of the online news medium,  Elombah.com  was said to have been grilled for nearly three hours while Daniel, and Izuchukwu were detained behind the counter.

 

They were eventually interrogated separately for several hours. Thereafter, it emerged that Tim was being accused of publishing a defamatory article on a website. The article titled “IGP Ibrahim Idris’s Unending Baggage of Controversies” was published as an opinion piece on opinionnigeria.com, an online medium that was hitherto unknown to any of the Elombahs. Moreover the author of the said article was one Ebiowei Dickson, which was a very strange name to the three brothers.

 

Tim was said to have repeatedly denied writing the article which in any case was NOT published on Elombah.com. Tim also denied knowing the identity of Ebiowei Dickson.

 

Daniel said that around midnight, one of his friends, Chief Obunike Ohaegbu, who was a Federal Commissioner, used his influence to secure his release and that of his brother Izuchukwu Elombah, but Tim Elombah remained in detention.

Daniel said that the Police was yet to reveal to him and Izuchukwu their alleged offenses.

 

“No one has informed me why I was abducted from my country home, handcuffed like a criminal and transported in a bus over a very bad road for 700 miles to Abuja. Izuchukwu was assaulted, slapped, punched and beaten. We were physically and psychologically tortured and traumatised! My mother’s blood pressure shot through the roof and she is presently undergoing medical treatment. Our children were traumatised at the sight of gun totting hefty men that we initially mistook for armed robbers or kidnappers banging at our doors and waking up the entire household in the wee hours of the morning of the New Year day. My movement is restricted and I’m not allowed to leave the country. That means that I and my family could not travel back to London as scheduled to enable our children resume schooling. The schools resumed on Wednesday 3rd January” he said.