{"id":159180,"date":"2025-04-13T10:16:51","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T09:16:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/uncategorized\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects"},"modified":"2025-04-15T13:11:57","modified_gmt":"2025-04-15T12:11:57","slug":"rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects","title":{"rendered":"Rivers: We were tortured, offered N200m to implicate Fubara\u2019s CoS \u2013 Discharged suspects"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"color: #ff6600\"><strong>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. <\/strong><\/span>Chime Ezebalike, Prince Oladele Lukman, Kenneth Kpasa and MacPherson Olumini, who were arrested after Rivers State House of Assembly was burnt down have alleged threat to their lives.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking to reporters in Port Harcourt on Saturday, the trio said their lives have remained under threat after court discharged and acquitted them.<\/p>\n<p>According to them, those against Governor Siminialayi Fubara and his Chief of Staff, Edison Ehie were behind the threat.<\/p>\n<p>Ezebalike, who spoke on behalf of others, said they decided to address journalists in the matter in order to clarify issues surrounding the burning of the assembly complex.<\/p>\n<p>He alleged that they were offered N200 million to implicate Fubara\u2019s Chief of Staff in the matter, stressing that they were tortured by law enforcement agents over their refusal to implicate Edison.<\/p>\n<p>He narrated: \u201cOur offence was because we refused to frame individuals, including the Chief of Staff to the Rivers State Government, Rt. Hon. Edison Ehie, as masterminds behind the Rivers State House of Assembly inferno.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cStarting from December 2023 we: Chime Ezebalike, Kenneth Kpasa, Prince Oladele Lukman, and MacPherson Olumini were individually and collectively subjected to arrest, intimidation, physical assault, psychological torture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll of this happened between December 5, 2023, and January 16, 2024. At some point, we were offered bribes in exchange for our freedom even though it was clear that we had committed no offence that warranted our being arrested and detained.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThree of us, Chime, Kenneth, and Oladele are known associates of Rt. Hon. Ehie Edison and Hon. Sokari Goodboy, while MacPherson was an unfortunate victim of mere proximity. Our ordeal began with the arbitrary arrest of Oladele Lukman on December 5, 2023.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn December 16, Chime and MacPherson were violently apprehended at Ogbakiri Junction along the East-West Road while returning from a funeral in Ahoada.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOn January 5, 2024, Kenneth Kpasa was forcefully taken in GRA, Port Harcourt, by a convoy of no fewer than three Hilux vans. We were blindfolded and taken to the Federal-Intelligence Response Team (F-IRT) unit along the Eastern Bypass in Port Harcourt, under the false pretense that the vehicle we were travelling in was stolen.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><strong>For More News And Analysis About <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Nigeria<\/span> Follow <span style=\"color: #ff6600\">Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Africa-Press &#8211; Nigeria. Chime Ezebalike, Prince Oladele Lukman, Kenneth Kpasa and MacPherson Olumini, who were arrested after Rivers State House of Assembly was burnt down have alleged threat to their lives. Speaking to reporters in Port Harcourt on Saturday, the trio said their lives have remained under threat after court discharged and acquitted them. According [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":159179,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,14],"tags":[10074,254,421],"class_list":["post-159180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-fubara","tag-nigeria","tag-rivers"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v26.1 (Yoast SEO v27.0) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Rivers: We were tortured, offered N200m to implicate Fubara\u2019s CoS \u2013 Discharged suspects - Nigeria<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Chime Ezebalike, Prince Oladele Lukman, Kenneth Kpasa and MacPherson Olumini, who were arrested after Rivers State House ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Rivers: We were tortured, offered N200m to implicate Fubara\u2019s CoS \u2013 Discharged suspects\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Chime Ezebalike, Prince Oladele Lukman, Kenneth Kpasa and MacPherson Olumini, who were arrested after Rivers State House ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Nigeria\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-04-13T09:16:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-04-15T12:11:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/04\/sm_1744527188.634167.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1280\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"720\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Rivers: We were tortured, offered N200m to implicate Fubara\u2019s CoS \u2013 Discharged suspects\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-04-13T09:16:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-04-15T12:11:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects\"},\"wordCount\":371,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/sites\/3\/2025\/04\/sm_1744527188.634167.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Fubara\",\"Nigeria\",\"Rivers\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"Policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/nigeria\/policy\/rivers-we-were-tortured-offered-n200m-to-implicate-fubaras-cos-discharged-suspects\",\"name\":\"Rivers: We were tortured, offered N200m to implicate Fubara\u2019s CoS \u2013 Discharged suspects - 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