 You're welcome back to the breakfast on Plus TV Africa. Now there's a new investigative report by Next Edition Media which has thrown new light into the police investigation into Inauabongi Moran's death. According to the story the police is covering up a lot of things and these include the accomplices of the prime suspect Uduak Akpan and previous accusations that he works with a gang that has carried out serial killings at the same place where Umoran was killed. The reporter who worked on that story, Ibangai Sinai, is joining us this morning. Ms. Aisinai, good morning. Thanks for joining us. Good morning. Thank you for having me. All right, so your report basically takes everything we know about this case and basically shakes it around a bit. I want you to give us, you know, more clues into the reports that you've published about how you say the police allegedly covered up the case and compromised it. Yeah, thank you very much for having me. This is a very sad situation we found ourselves in a white room state. First of all, the police have lied about so many things and it is not funny when you see an institution that is supposed to protect life and property doing what the police have done in a white room state. I want to say that right from the outset, the police deliberately, deliberately, I'm using that word with every sense of responsibility and I know what it means to be deliberate. The police deliberately felt to assist Iobong when she was in distress. Anyone who would have listened to the audio that was shared by the friend and the sister of her shouting and Jesus, Jesus would have known that was not the case of a missing person. That was somebody in distress and the police had that information and they still asked the distraught family members to go home and wait for 48 hours. I think that was very irresponsible. Number two, the police told us that immediately after they got the report, the song into action. Now, you can imagine that this incident was reported on Friday evening of the 29th of April and the police did not take any action until this issue started trending on social media. And when the PPR of Macdon came up, he told us that the police immediately swung into action and how immediate was the action when the incident was reported in the evening of 29th and then on the 1st, you told us that you swung into action immediately. That's number two. Number three is that the police, after they sluggishly went and started looking for the self-confessed rapist and murderer, they arrested him the next day, which was taken and took him into custody. It was on the 1st that the PPR came out to address journalists that he was arrested. Why did the police that got information about the distressed person did not act on time when he finally went to arrest the suspect or the self-confessed killer? They failed to inform the family and take the family and the media along. They went decudimously with the accused person, the suspect, the person who claimed to kill, who accepted responsibility for the killing and exhumed her body and took it to where the police public relations officer said was the University of Uyutiching Hospital, which we found out was not true. In fact, the cops was taken to a private, local, small mortuary in Dukurunse, far from the University of Uyutiching Hospital, which the PPR said. That was a lie. Now, when you exhumed a human being in a location, even a small investigator would protect the scene of that crime. The police left that place open and took the cops away. Now, a few days after, witnesses, locals and people living close to that area said people that looked like policemen came back and exhumed so many cops and took them away. Now, nobody knows, as we speak, those who came to exhum those cops. And if you look at the goals, the commission of police called YAM rules, in which case no YAM was planted there. Nothing like YAM was cultivated. And in any case, do we cultivate YAM in a dosage or any part of South South? Do we dig up YAMs at this time? It is an insult. He's just lied to us as if YAM morons, that those were YAM rules. YAM rules and these rules were stinking. Do we have that level of stings from YAM in this village? Would you say that YAM in Yubang was it? Why do they do this? Can you hear me? I need us to be clear on what you're trying to say. You're saying that locals saw people who say they were policemen who went to exhumed cops from that particular place. They looked like policemen. Who looked like policemen, who went there to exhum bodies from that particular land where Umarine was buried. That's him compound. And then now you're saying that according to a police report, the police say those holes there were not cops. The commission of police said that on national television. All right, so what you're saying again on the 14th? I'm trying. What I'm trying to get here is that you're saying that those places, basically those graveyards, so to speak, or those YAM holes were graveyards, not YAM holes. Is that what you're trying to say? Okay, I just wanted us to get that over with. The commission of police to bring the forensic report that should, those places were YAM holes. Okay, so Mr Isine, Mr Isine. All right, if you're saying that the police Piero said there were YAM holes in the compound where it was the commission of police. It was the commission of police. If you're saying those places were shallow graves, not YAM holes, why do you think the police was trying to cover that up? You should ask the commission of police. Why would you ask me? How can I know what the commission of police was thinking or why you would say we do that? All right, Mr Isine, let's bring in the perspective of other people that might be working with the prime suspect here, Udo Hakkban. Your report also says that there's other people that very likely are connected to the crime that have seemingly been ignored in all of these police statements and the likes. So let's talk about that. What did you find? There's some other person called Emmanuel that you mentioned that doesn't seem to make any sense in any way. Emmanuel was actually the person, this is a syndicate, please. Udo Hakkban did not directly contact Inubong Umare. All right. It was AMM who contacted Inubong and the records are there. One thing we should ask the commission of police and the security law enforcement is why is it difficult for them to call for the call law of Udo Hakkban for at least six months, see everybody who called him, not just at the, see the transactions in his account as could be found in his deposit, the bank alleged he got. Why is that difficult? Now, AMM was the one who contacted Inubong and said the boss has a job and could give her a job and then exchanged their numbers before Udo Hakkban came in. In another case, there is a victim who said she was lured by the sister of Udo Hakkban. And when she was being raped, the sister was there, told her, they comply, comply, you will not go. And that this sister, when the guy had given rap and had given this, I mean this victim, two raps of Indian him to smoke, apparently to knock her over and she was still on and she wanted to rape her and carried her kit out on the concrete floor. The girl shouted and then the sister came out and said, was that what they asked you to do? Was that what the witness said, I mean the victim said, was that what they asked you to do? In fact, at the end of the day, when the Uros discovered that this girl had given her number, I mean his number to a friend and other people, and the other girl was calling him. He said that she has messed up, that she should go and bring her friend or whether they have somebody who has wronged her so much that if she sees the person at the point of date, she will not help such a person. And she said she was not bringing, she said she's fucked up, that they would give her so much money. I have witnesses, so many witnesses who say the same thing. So the sister was, after this girl was raped and they took a nude picture of her, the Uros handed over her phone to the sister and took this girl away to go and drop. It was on the way, dropping this girl, that when this girl met three Okada people, she now asked Uros for the phone. And Uros insisted, no, no, she was a prostitute, she picked her as a prostitute and did not perform well. And so he didn't pay her. And the girl said, no, no, no, no, no, no, started talking. And those cyclists asked the victim, what if we don't find your phone in his pocket and said you will do anything to me. Unfortunately, the phone was not in Uros pocket according to the victim. What saved her from those cyclists was that she told the cyclist, check his phone, check if you don't see my nude picture. If you see my nude picture, so they checked, they collected the phone and checked and saw a nude picture. They went back. It was the mother came out and said that they have been advising Uros to the cyclist not to do those things again. So this thing has been known to the family. All right. And, you know, from what you report also, you know, a lot of all these aspects that you've been able to uncover don't seem to be making it into the police record. So, you know, it doesn't seem like they are interested, you know, in, you know, on bundling some of these aspects that you've brought up. That shows the level of compromise. That shows the level of irresponsibility. How would you respond to those who say, well, you know, some of your informants may be lying, you know, and these are all just conspiracy theories and those. Probably when they are being caught, I ask the private state government, because this was a citizen. Let me do two parallels. Yesterday, just yesterday, Allaji Ahmed Gulak, Ahmed Gulak was killed in Imo State because it's one of them, one at the echelon, one of those, you know, in authority, a politically exposed person. The same yesterday, the police said they have found the killers and killed them, neutralized and they showed us graphic pictures. That is when the system is fighting against those fighting against them. When it comes to the people, the poor, the real people that should be protected, the police develop school fate, the police suddenly turn blind to, to, to, to clear evidences and they deliberately destroy evidence. I tell you, there's a lot of compromise and if K is not taken, Nigerians don't write to speak with one voice and demand justice and demand accountability on the part of the police. Uraba will not, I mean, in Yobo, Morin will not get justice. And there are so many people out there waiting who are ready to speak up at the appropriate time about their experiences with that family. And we should not just say, oh, the police, the police, how can the police just close an investigation just like that? Why did the police lie about everything? They, they, they, I mean, Morin, I mean, told himself in the guy who contacted, the guy who contacted in Yobo, told himself in on the page yet and has been in custody of a man. The father is a minister of God, he's a pastor and has been trying to bring the guy out. I have not done any speculation. I have done investigation for the past 20 to 25 years. Nobody has ever contradicted my report. I challenge the police to come out and say my findings are not true. I challenge them to say they did not lie. Now, let me put some, some one, one more issue to you. When the PPR was speaking like a parrot, because I don't see any public relations officer would say those kinds of things to say. He provided a motive for why in Yubo was killed, that chief was attacked to drop. That was what he said. Who would say that? You saw who was given a VIP treatment. You saw what the police did to those who killed Amigula. They bloodied them. But in the case of Ura, he sat like, look, when I was arrested by DSS, I was treated like an animal. I did not commit any crime. It was charged in the court of my job. I was treated like an animal. But look at the treatment. He was sitting, he was sitting like, look at, look at the audacity. He was telling people, hey, the commissioner has said, the police have said, do you get justice? Hey, cool down, calm down, calm down. People should calm down, that they will get justice. And the father said, if the system permits, because the father knows what they are, you know, what they have done and who are behind them, if they will, if the system will. So those are self-explanatory. The commissioner police is not truthful. And I challenge him to come on this program with me and let me put those, these lies to his face and let him lie again. All right, Mr, Mr. Aisine, his daughter or relation. I challenge you, would he do that? Okay, Mr. Aisine, your reports also, you know, when I read it, you mentioned a distinction that, you know, when the family reported this matter, they said they needed to wait 24 hours, you know, but it's, it was not a, 48 hours, but it was not a case, exactly. So I want us to be able to make that distinction, you know, like you did in your report to say, this was a case of a distressed person. And what, what the police should do when the case of a distressed person is reported? Immediately, immediately they swing into action to find the person, they swing into action. That's what every, every responsible security agency should do, swing into action because you had the, the audio of the girl screaming. It's so hard-wrenching. Now, no decent and responsible human being, even if you are a vigilante, a member of a vigilante and you hear that video or you hear that audio, you will not start running to that direction. It was not as if people did not know where this girl went to. They knew exactly where she went to. They knew who invited her, for example, they had his number. And they told the police, so you should ask the police, call the, call the Commissioner of Police, call the McDonald and ask him, why didn't you take action? I know that the DPO of Iweta, I mean Itham police station is a, one of the best in this country. I don't think he would have, he was around. If he were around, you would not have treated that matter like that because I had an issue that I reported to him. I reported an incident at midnight about somebody in distress. I was given, I was in youth and that person got into distress and called me. I called the Commissioner, I mean Deputy Commissioner of Police and they sent me immediately a patrol team. We went, it was Itham Division, that same division that took that case. They went, arrested that, they looked that same night and brought him into custody. So the DPO of that station is one of the best, most, one of the most responsible, one of the best cops I've ever met. So I don't think he was around. So the failure to unveil, you know, and to dig deeper into this case, the failure to bring up the Mano fellow, the failure to look into Uduak Akban's call logs, the failure to look into his bank transactions the last couple of months, like you've said, is this typical of the Nigerian police force or do you feel like there might be people in the force that do not want these things to be exposed? You know, as a journalist and a researcher, I don't make assumptions. Everything I've said here are best on fact and verifiable evidence. So I won't make any assumption about anything. It is when I make a finding and I'm sure of what I'm saying, I can say that. But I will stop saying that the police is unprofessional by leaving the crime scene open and perhaps allowing people to go and destroy those things. And let me put something to you here. Everybody who has been invited, including the victim I spoke to yesterday, said they submitted their CV and credentials to Mintura Akban. Now, all those CVs, all those credentials that you found, books of children, uniforms, NYAC shoes and all that, were belong to people who might have been killed in that compound. Now, the commissioner of police was saying that those things belong to members of the family. And everybody, in fact, there's a report I'm working on and I'm not going to disclose the substance of that report. That shows that almost everybody he invited went with their credentials. So those credentials were bonds. They were allowed to be bonds. As I speak to you today, if you go to that compound, you will still feel the stench in all the holes. You will see bonds. You will see human bonds. Don't mind those who went on the street to say they protested. They're calling for justice. Some of them are fake. One of my correspondents, my reporter, a young reporter I'm mentoring, when they took pictures and a very senior member of what you call them, Fida, sent a very, I think, very irresponsible text to her. It started by saying, are you defragging, Jacob? And I challenge them, if anything happens to defragging, I will hold them responsible. I'm calling out the Fida Chairman in a quiet mistake. I'm calling out the Fida Chairman. I have the text message you sent to defragging. If anything happens, because if you are truly a member of Fida and you have the interest of people at heart, you will not send that text and ask her now that you are published. What do you intend to do? Why are you sure of this and that? Sorry, what is Fida? I have to raise this issue. Yeah, what is Fida? What's Fida? Tradition of international women and lawyers. Okay. Fida, yes. The lady sent a chat to the reporter asking very queer questions, asking, so you are defragging, Jacob. How did you find this? How did you find that? How did you find that? As if she is an investigator, she's a police officer. Our jobs are to expose. Our job is surveillance. Surveillance is one of the functions of the media and investigation is part of surveillance and we are doing our jobs. If the police claim what I said were false, they should come up with a fact and I'm ready to shame them again. Okay, quickly share with us where the case is currently. I know courts aren't active in many parts of the country, but it also seems to be dragging or taking some time for the investigation to be complete and for Uduak Akman to be charged to court. But what is what? Not because of investigation. From what I've learned, the police have concluded the investigation. It's just because the court workers are still on strike. That is the only thing. And I use this opportunity to call on the governor of the private state, Mr. Uduwi Emmanuel, to impanel a different team with forensic experts to go back and look at the scene of that crime. See what they can find and ask the police. You said you arrested this person on this day. Why did you not tell us the truth? You said you have no accomplices, but this other person is in your custody. Why are you keeping him as furniture? Why did you keep him? Why are you keeping him if he has nothing to do with what you investigated? You said you depositioned the cops at the University of Houston Hospital, and that was a lie. These are very simple things. Why would the police lie over this? And why would the police offer a motive for somebody, a criminal, even when he never told us that in the public? The PPR said, oh, the girl hit her with a transformer. Every girl that has been told to you who has been in that compound said there's no light in that compound, the youth generator, who uses a stabilizer in a, I passed my label. Who uses stabilizer? No, ask the PPR who uses a stabilizer in a compound that I use. They use, I passed my label because that was what they had. There's also, you know, part of report that says, you know, that there's a certain time a young woman ran out naked from that compound. Yes, neighbors. I have, if you listen to the video that we posted with the story, you'll hear the person who took a reporter around talking about that some of these trees that you see are planted here are human beings. And that's the key. When they kill people, they remove the part they want and then put the remaining body in a sack and bury them in a sack. According to him, when they bury in the sack, when they want to look for the bones, people come to buy the bones, they can just go to the sack and his wounds scatter and pull them out. But that's why they bury them in sack and bury them in sack because they would have caught every other part. So you can just bury, you can just bury them normally. And that most of the trees that are planted in that compound, if you dig around the compound, even look at the Sokawae pit, there are so many corpses still there. The area is stinking like mad, as we speak. A witness said a girl ran out of that. So many times, women will run out. I don't know why they're all, they're specialized in women, they're specialized in women. And so neighbors will tell you a woman ran into the compound, I mean, ran out. And then people will tell them, what's happening, a case between a girlfriend and a boy. And this guy looks so harmless. So harmless. So with the ongoing strike now, according to you, it's up to the governor to do something about this quickly. No, it is not the duty of the governor. But because one of the cardinal objective, in fact, the main duty of the government, the responsibility and function of the government, as provided for in the Constitution, is to protect life of citizens and the property. Now, if we find that what the police have done is not good enough, then the government can impart a different team to go back and investigate and bring out more evidence. I would want forensic experts to be deployed to that location. I would want the call locks for six months, the past six months. Okay. The call lock of the father, the call lock of mm, mm to be obtained. And the forensic expert and expert would study them and know exactly what they were doing, who was speaking to them. I'm not here to tell you that, oh, a politician is involved. Until I find it, I can't say. We are still following some of the digital footprints of people he spoke with. But we don't have the technology to unravel some of these things. We have a lot of information. My team, back there, I mean, in, in, in, in Lagos and Abuja have gathered a lot of things, but we are just handicapped. We cannot go beyond the level we've gone for now. But if the government wants this case to really be handled properly, I think they shoot a panel, another team and get them to work and present another report so that the two reports with the, what the police have provided and these other independent reports could be looked at and then see how this can go. Because we are talking about diligent prosecution, the quality of investigation that is done by the police is what helps in prosecution. Look at the George Floyd case. The prosecution took time to study, analyze, and bring every material evidence that could help them in handling the case. And that's what's happened. When you see a police lying on very simple things, then you begin to imagine All right. So is it possible, is it possible for, for citizens to you know, ask that Emmanuel, the Emmanuel fellow be charged, you know, for, you know, being an accomplice? It can be charged unless the police does the needful or an independent maybe civil society groups. Yes. So is that, is that possible and make a very strong demand? Is it possible that? No civil society organization is speaking on this issue. All of them are quiet. And I don't know why all of them are quiet. I mean, with the rubbish everything people have done about this case. And it is not unusual. Yeah. With the silence of the, with the silence of the police, like you've mentioned, you know, and the fact that, you know, it seems to be a closed case when there's so many other angles that, you know, could also be brought up, you know, with this case. You know, there's some, there has to be a way that, you know, people can call for, you know, those call logs. There has to be a way that people can call for those bank, you know, logs also instead of just sitting back and accepting, you know, that the case is closed and there is there's a lone suspect who has, you know, confessed, you know, to the crime. So what would you, from your perspective and from the years of experience that you have, what would you ask that citizens, civil society organizations, anybody, you know, tries out in order to ensure that these other aspects of the case are unraveled? I think there's a process to that effect at Tiana social cultural group in Aquarium State has appointed a senior advocate of Niger, one of the best in the country, by Stan Woku, to be the eye during the trial. I think people like that should make strong demands and question what the police have done already. And then civil society groups should speak up. I've not seen any civil society group within Aquarium or outside Aquarium speaking up in this case. I am not alien to this kind of situation. I was a reporter, a young reporter, a cop reporter in Imo State in 2003, when Angela Eintugue was murdered and then her private part was removed, her eyes and she was seven months old pregnant and they removed the pictures. And I was the only journalist in Imo State at that time who reported that story. And the government then, Achike Udenwa was the governor of Imo State. And Achike Udenwa, Chief Press Secretary, Declan Eme Lomba called me and said I should stop writing that story. And I even wrote to Punch that it was live. Azubike Ishekwene was the editor of the Punch at that time. And my immediate editor was Judy Price. They asked me to provide evidence. And thank God at that time Punch had given all its cameras. We had no newspapers in this country, had cameras and computers. We had all those stuff. So when I went out to investigate that story, I took pictures, all the pictures and I spoke to people and had the recordings. So I sent everything to Lagos. The next day they ran that story again. It was still the story that played the paper. About two weeks later, higher assassins came to my house to kill me. I escaped by God's grace. And Eme Lomba, Declan Eme Lomba, who is now the commissioner for information in Ingustin, I'm calling out Eme Lomba today to challenge what I've said today that Angela Hintughe had found justice after she was killed. They threatened even the family not to talk to me again. And after threatening the family and the family called me and said they cannot talk to me, that their life is in danger. They came for me and I fled. I challenged Eme Lomba. These are the kind of things that are happening in this country. And before you know it, anybody who stands up to talk about it or to bring it to public limelight or bring it to a public discourse like this, they'll go after them. You cannot come after me. God is above you people. I challenged Eme Lomba today, the commissioner for information in Ingustin. Declan Eme Lomba, you were the chief secretary to Dengwa at that time. And you called me twice and warned me against doing that story. And I was almost killed in Ingustin. It was on February 20th, February 2003. I ran away in the night and you thought you had won. There will be a day for you, Eme Lomba. I'm calling out Eme Lomba. Okay, so I'm coming back to this particular case. We know that in other parts of the world, when things like this happen, there's an unsolved murder, the bodies can even be exhumed, even many, many years later so that they can continue investigations. But in a country like this where we might not exactly have all the forensics to do such, I mean, burying hard, burying Eme Lomba, was that the right thing to do since the case is still ongoing? Because the police said whether you keep it, like what I learned, the mortician said, whether you keep it, you can keep this kind of cops for this long because it was bloated and there's nothing they will do about it. There's nothing they can, nothing can change. And as far as the police were concerned, they had completed the investigation even at that time. By the time they had sort of indoctrinated the guy telling him what to say and he came to DAS laws and he sought us. And the police deliberately brought out some of the data journalists in Acquavum because that did not represent, I stand to defend journalists in Acquavum State. Those guys you saw there were Nipwits that were recruited by the Police Public Relations Officer. I can mention some of the best journalists in Acquavum State. Okay, Mr Aiseneh. Where they went for the burial of Inubong, coming back while the police was conducting the sheriff, they called a raid or a press briefing and we saw all that. So you could not have found serious journalists like me, I'm from Acquavum and there are so many good journalists in Acquavum. Mr Aiseneh, you're asking those kind of stupid questions that we hear. All right, thank you. Thank you very much for your time, Mr Aiseneh. You've made lots of claims so yes, we do need to follow up, especially with the police in the States. Thank you very much for joining us. Please bring them and bring me. I'll be ready to pass them. Thank you very much. Have a great day. Thanks for having me. All right, so we'll go on a short break here to return to join the PRO in Imul State to talk about the insecurity there. Do stay with us.