‘The EFCC killed my husband and labelled him a criminal’ Distraught Widow Cries Out

A widow, Susanne, has accused the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, of killing her husband, the Chief Protocol Officer of the Minister of State for Defence, Mr. Desmond Nunugwo, and calling him a criminal.

She further explained that her husband was pronounced dead six hours after he was taken into custody.

Giving details about how the incident happened, she told Punch that she had been calling her husband’s phone repeatedly but it was switched off as she did not know he was in EFCC’s custody in Wuse 2, Abuja. She said,

“Around 3 pm on June 9, my husband had gone to pick up our son from school and they both returned home. He later went out. Around 6pm, I called his line and it rang once. I tried his number several times later, but it was off.

The next morning, I got apprehensive when he didn’t come home. However, around 3.48pm, someone called me with his phone and said my husband was in the EFCC’s custody and I should come to bail him.”

She explained further that on getting to the EFCC office, they told her to go and get a man because being a woman, her husband could not be released on bail to her, so, she left.

A few hours after leaving, the EFCC was alleged to have released a press statement breaking the news of Desmond’s death.

“The EFCC called me to their office to come and bail my husband while he was already at the mortuary.

I later received a phone call from a former colleague of mine that he had read the news online that my husband was arrested for fraud and he had died,” she said.

The widow said she was informed that her husband’s arrest was sequel to a petition written by one of his business associate called Uloma.

Susanne said: “She (Uloma) told the EFCC that she met my husband on a flight in 2012 when he was on his way to the US where I went to give birth. She said my husband introduced her to a third party with whom she did a N91m transaction.”

Susanne criticized the EFCC for labelling her husband a fraudster even after causing his death, adding that the anti-graft agency must clear his name.

According to reports from the nephew of the deceased, Amaechi Ihezie, he said that when he visited the EFCC, investigators told him that Desmond slumped and died, adding that the agency denied Desmond bail even after it had been discovered that he did not receive any money from the transaction.

Ihezie accused the EFCC of being overzealous as the commission did not inform the Ministry of Defence of Desmond’s arrest or investigation even though he had been working at the ministry for over 10 years.

“The EFCC told me that before he died, he wrote a statement of four pages. They gave him his phone to make calls for about two hours and then nobody came to bail him and so they said they transferred him to their head office and that a few hours later, he started to complain of discomfort and slumped.

They said he was rushed to the hospital and confirmed dead,” he added.

However, the EFCC had said in a statement by its spokesman, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, that the deceased allegedly fraudulently obtained N91m from an acquaintance after he tricked her into believing that he had high net worth business associates in Dubai, who were on the verge of buying NICON Insurance, and convinced her of their disposition to help her stockfish business.

Consequently, she allegedly wired N91m into an account, Mainage General Merchants, in Diamond Bank.

“After the transfer of the funds, he became evasive forcing the complainant to report to the EFCC. Consequently, he was arrested in Utako, Abuja, at about 5.33pm on Thursday, June 9, 2016.

He admitted to receiving the money from the complainant, with the additional information that he transferred N30m of the said money to Norway. But he could not explain the whereabouts of the balance of N61m.

The suspect was detained at about 7.30pm, in the absence of anybody to take him on bail. Six hours later, he suddenly complained of discomfort and was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead,” the statement read.

In a petition addressed to the Attorney-General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami (SAN), the lawyer of the family, Mr. Paul Edeh, alleged a cover-up in the case.

The petition partly read: “The EFCC has blatantly refused that a post-mortem examination should be carried out on the body so as not to be indicted. This may have been the reason why more than two months after Desmond’s death, no move has been made to carry out an autopsy.

After many visits by our clients to the EFCC and the police, both agencies have maintained that Desmond died a natural death. One, therefore, wonders how both the police and the EFCC could come up with such a common position in the absence of a medical examination to determine the cause of death.”

Photo credit: Punch