A Lagos-based chemical engineer, James Izuchukwu Ogbu, has lamented his 43 months incarceration in Kirikiri Medium Correctional Centre, Apapa, Lagos, over alleged sexual assault.

Ogbu has been on the awaiting trial list since 2019, after an Ikeja Magistrate’s court ordered his remand for sexual assault.

The graduate of chemical engineering, Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, said he was being prosecuted for an offence he knew nothing about.

Narrating his ordeal, the detainee traced his ordeal to his inroad into politics, which some powerful politicians were not comfortable with.

According to him, his fate suffered a devastating twist after he decamped from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to the All Progressives Congress (APC) and won the former stronghold of PDP for his new party, APC.

Ogbu alleged that his traducers at PDP and members of the Igbo community in Otumara community in Lagos Mainland Local Council, conspired, cooked up a sexual assault charge against him, and got him arrested.

He said: “At Iponri Divisional Headquarters where I was detained, a teenage girl was brought before the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) that I allegedly assaulted sexually.

“All efforts to tell the police that I don’t know the girl, let alone assault her fell on deaf ears. I was promptly charged with sexual assault and remanded in Kirikiri Correctional Centre, and had been on the awaiting trial list since 2019.

“My case attracted a lawyer, who got the case file and went to the Lagos High Court Ikeja, before Justice R. A. Oshodi, and the matter was adjourned to December 12.

“Before the involvement of the lawyer, I had appeared before the same Judge for the 16th time without a complainant, police prosecutor and interested party. It was simply a case of calling the matter, docking the accused and adjourning it to a later date.”Speaking in tears to newsmen at the Kirikiri Correctional Centre, where he is still being held, the native of Ugwulangu in Ohaozarra Local Council of Ebonyi State, said: “Why has Justice Oshodi decided to punish me with arbitrary adjournments when it is obvious and clear that no witness has ever appeared in my case in four years.

“Does he want me to die in prison for no crime committed at all? Please sir, you have to help me reduce this long adjournment for fairness and justice because justice delayed is justice denied.”

Ogbu completed his National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in 2017 but joined politics in 2009 at ABU. He was a member of PDP in 2011, while being a student until 2018 when he officially decamped to the APC in Lagos Mainland Local Council.

“Thereafter, I was made the APC youth Leader in Otumara community, Lagos Mainland in 2018. I later founded a political group, named: APC Grass Root Campaign Initiatives Lagos Mainland (Otumara Unit).

“The Chairman Lagos Mainland, Prince Fagba, inaugurated my campaign group in 2018 and we worked until after the 2019 General Elections where we won and delivered PDP stronghold of Otumara Community, Ilaje, Ebute-Metta West Lagos Mainland LGA, to APC our new party.

“I personally used my popularity to move over hundreds of youths to APC at Otumara Community off Costain roundabout Lagos Mainland. This uncommon victory for APC in a formerly dominated PDP region in Lagos State called Ilaje Otumara in Ebute Metta Lagos Mainland LGA, with over 80,000 residents, shot me to limelight.

“It took us as a group to remove almost 20 years of PDP grip on Otumara Community. “So, after the elections, opposition ganged up with the defeated PDP members, including some defunct and now disbanded local Ilaje Otumara community vigilante group, and began to victimise and oppress my members.

“The complaints from both local and some party members became so much that I wrote a petition against the local vigilante groups for unlawfully arresting some of my members and threatening to send them to prison.

“I also wrote a petition against the Otumara vigilante group and asked the Executive Chairman Lagos Mainland council, Omolola Essien, to disband these partial and corrupt security outfits.”

“Both my political group, called Ebonyi Youth Lagos, were summoned before the Local Council Chairman where the case was settled.”

After this settlement, the chief security officer of Ilaje Otumara vigilante group and the Board of Trustee (BOT) chairman of the same group, reported me to Igbo unions, Igbo speaking communities and other bodies, and threatened to deal with me after seven months in November 25, 2019.

“These Otumara Vigilante Group conspired with Iponri Police Station and invited me to the station. They arranged one Gabriel Obasi to report a case of sexual assault for his daughter. I don’t know the man, and I don’t have any business, whatsoever with him or his daughter. I believe Mr. Gabriel Obasi was bribed to present his daughter at the police station and claimed that she was defiled by me.

“After one week in detention and refusal of bail, the matter went to court. And all these bands of conspirators left the community.

“Please help me out of this detention. It is a pity that Justice R.A Oshodi denied me bail despite all these, and refused to discharge the case after three year and seven months of awaiting trial. “Help me to get back my freedom. I have been to the court for 16 adjournments, yet no complainants, no witnesses, no police IPO, no medical witnesses, nobody at all that has shown up with interest in the case, yet I am continuously remanded in Kirikiri Medium Prison, Apapa, Lagos. Do they want me to die in jail? What kind of injustice is this?”