Chukwuebuka Enweani, an Anambra resident, has accused Theophilus Iziedozie of conniving with some policemen from Zone 13, Anambra Police Command, to oppress and victimise him in a bid to grab a piece of land he inherited from Peter Enweani, his late father.

Enweani told FIJ that he had been enduring a series of victimisations at the hands of these policemen since October 2023, when he was arrested by officer Theophilus Utazi and another policeman and detained in the police station for over a month. He added that the policemen did not contact his relatives to inform them of his arrest and his family only discovered he was in a police cell in his third week of detention.

“I inherited a piece of land from my late father, and when I wanted to commence construction on it, a group of hoodlums laid in ambush for me and the workers I had employed to attack us. I began to investigate who they were and who had sent them. That was when I learned it was Theophilus Iziedozie who orchestrated the attack. I wrote a petition against him at Zone 13, which was approved a month later,” said Enweani.

He also said that the police asked him to pay the sum of N700,000 so they could fuel their vehicle and mobilise some of their men to his land. Enweani negotiated with the police to slash the money, and they eventually slashed it and asked him to pay the sum of N400,000.

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After he paid, he was accompanied by some policemen to the land.

“The policemen were dressed in mufti, and around 4 pm, the people who had attacked me earlier returned. The policemen nabbed one of them, and he confessed that he was sent by Theophilus Iziedozie. Later that day, I was invited to the station alongside Iziedozie. The DCO released us and told us to return with our land documents on October 10,” said Enweani.

However, he could not return to the office of the DCO on the said date with his land document.

“On October 7, at around 6 am, some policemen from the same Zone 13 came to arrest me in my house. They collected my phone from me and locked me up for over a month. My relatives had no idea where I was because they were uninformed by the police. It was in my third week there that they discovered I was being detained,” said Enweani.

After hearing of his arrest, his relatives rallied around to employ the services of a lawyer to ensure his release. Enweani told FIJ that he was arraigned in court and accused of cultism and armed robbery by the police but was eventually granted bail by the court and released.

He added that when he returned home, he discovered his home had been ransacked and some of his documents had gone missing. When he went back to the piece of land, he did not find it in the same condition as when he left it.

He told FIJ that he suspected the same policemen who had arrested him were the ones who ransacked his home while he was in detention.

“I noticed that Theophilus had begun constructing a structure on my land. All the equipment I bought with my money had also been carted away. Theophilus also filed another land suit against me in November after my release,” he said.

In a copy of the land suit Enweani shared with FIJ, Iziedozie claimed one Oluchukwu Eze, the widow of Mike Eze, sold him the land and that her lawyer released a deed of conveyance, a certificate of allocation, a survey plan, as well as a letter appointing Peter Enweani (Chukwuebuka Enweani’s late father) as a member of the security committee on October 7.

FIJ discovered that the day Iziedozie claimed to have received the land documents was the same day Enweani was arrested.

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“Since then, they have been doing all that they can to ‘reprimand’ me in prison. I have been defending myself against the police and Iziedozie since last year and shouting for the whole world to hear,” Enweani lamented.

On Tuesday, FIJ sent Utazi, one of the policemen Enweani claimed had arrested him, a message, but he did not respond.

When FIJ called Iziedozie on Wednesday, he told this reporter never to call him again or he would rain curses on her.

“Never call this number again, or I will curse you the next time you do,” Iziedozie threatened.

Some minutes later, he called this reporter to say he was not going to comment on the issue because the case was in court.

FIJ also asked Enweani if it was true that the case was in court and he affirmed it.