Whistle blower, blogger arrested by the Nigerian police for cyber bullying
- A whistle blower, Dennis Ukpabi, and blogger, Fejiro Oliver, have been arrested by the police
- They were arraigned in court for cyber-bulling and were remanded in IIkoyi prison
A self acclaimed whistle blower Dennis Ukpabi, who wrote a book titled 'The Whistle blower' have been arrested and remanded in jail for exposing alleged fraud.
Legit.ng learnt that Ukpabi, a former staff of Sterling Bank Nigeria, was allegedly arrested for publishing the book where accused some employees of the bank – Adekanla Desalu, Eguru Nyenke, Janet Akpan and Kojusola Ajao – of fraud in his book.
Punch reports that Ukpabio alleged that a colleague whom he accused of fraud was promoted after the accusation because she was dating an executive director of the bank.
Ukpabio and Oliver were arraigned on Friday, April 28, and charged with 5 counts charges bordering on cyber-bullying.
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The charges against them read: “That you Dennis Ukpabi and Tega Oghenero between 1st – 13th February, 2017 in Lagos within the jurisdiction of Federal High Court conspired together to commit felonies, namely knowingly and intentional sending intimidated, hatred, insulting and needless anxiety messages and thereby committed an offence punishable under section 27 (1) (b) of Cybercrime (prohibition, prevention etc Act 2015)."
“That you, Tega Oghenero and Dennis Ukpabi knowingly and intentionally sent gross offensive, indecent, sexual relationship obsence, intimidated, annoyed, hatred and insultive, needless anxiety messages’’ to Adekanla Desalu, Busola Awosile, Eguru Nyenke and Adeyemi Odubiyi, respectively, which are said to be ‘’punishable under section 24 (1) (b) of Cybercrime (prohibition, prevention etc Act 2015.’’
The human rights lawyer defending the accused, Inibehe Effiong, however told the court that the police arrested the accused illegally.
He said: “My lord, the defendants were deliberately ambushed by the prosecution in other to deny them the opportunity of bringing a formal application for their bail. This information was filed on April 6, 2017, and contrary to the provisions of Section 390 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, which makes it mandatory for the defendants to be served with the notice of trail not less than seven days before their arraignment, the defendants were just served the information this morning.”
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Justice Mohammed Idris remanded them in Ikoyi prison but encouraged the defendant lawyer to bring a formal application for bail.
Meanwhile, the acting chairman, Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, Ibrahim Magu, on Thursday, April 27, 2017 disclosed that the introduction of the whistle-blower policy by the federal government has led to the recovery of about N17billion by the Commission.
Legit.ng learnt that Magu gave this hint while presenting a paper titled “Before Corruption Kills Nigeria”, at the 62nd award night of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ, held at the Ladi Kwali Hall, Sheraton Hotels, Abuja.
In this Legit.ng video, Nigerians talked about the punishment they deemed fit for looters:
Source: Legit.ng
