Navy allegedly detains lawyer, two others over coast guard bill

The Nigerian Navy has been accused of illegally detaining a Port Harcourt-based lawyer, Kevin Okorie, for supporting a bill to create a Nigerian Coast Guard.

Okorie’s wife, Esther, who raised the alarm said her husband was arrested on September 10, 2024, by naval personnel from the Iwofe Aker Base, Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.

Narrating the development to FIJ, she said her husband had been in detention since September alongside two others identified as Jeffrey Agogoh and Udo.

Okorie and some people were said to have lent their voices in support of the bill which had already passed its second reading and public hearing stages at the National Assembly.

Esther said she received a call from Okorie that he was being invited by the navy, adding that he was on his way to their base.

She however alleged that he had since then been detained in their facility.

She said, “He was invited to a meeting on September 10 and he didn’t return home that day. The next day, he called me that he was coming back home with some naval officers, but he failed to show up at home. He was also unreachable on the phone. I went to the base on September 13 and they said he was not with them. They then said that I should go and report to the police that he was missing. I insisted that he was in their custody because he informed me of his movement. They angrily sent me away from their office.

“Luckily, my husband called me with an officer’s phone to inform me that he was being detained at the naval base. I then prepared food and took it to him, but they did not grant me access to him. He only spoke with me from another room. I have not seen my husband since then. His location in Abuja remains unknown. The last time I spoke with him, he said he did not know why they were detaining him and that he had been asking them what his offence was.”

She said some lawyers went to the naval base two weeks after her husband’s disappearance but the naval officers denied detaining him in their facility.

She also claimed that despite returning to the naval base to protest the arrest of her husband, the officers insisted there was no record of him with them.

Okorie’s wife who claimed to have further protested said, “I asked them, who was the person I spoke with and brought food for twice in this same place? Who ate the food?” That was when one Officer Eko with phone number 08035362486 said that my husband had been moved to Abuja with no known crime.

“Officer Eko asked me to call him later so that he would tell me where they moved my husband to in Abuja. When I called the officer, he refused to provide specific information as he promised. He repeated what they told me at their office that he had been moved to Abuja and that was all they knew.”

While noting that members of the community had petitioned the Nigerian Bar Association for support, she lamented that her children had been crying, refusing to eat and asking to see their dad.

Esther however alleged that her husband, Okorie, and two others, Jeffrey Agogoh and Udo, were detained by the Nigerian Navy for advocating the establishment of a Nigerian Coast Guard.

She added that they had written letters to the Federal Government and the Navy, pushing for the creation of the agency.

When contacted on Sunday by PUNCH Metro, the Nigerian Navy spokesperson, Commodore Aiwuyor Adams-Aliu, denied the allegations.

In reply to our SMS to his telephone number by our correspondent, the spokesperson wrote tersely, “No such person in Naval custody.”