A Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Onyechi Ikpeazu, has disclosed that he’s defending Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari, and other members of his Intelligent Response Team, IRT, free of charge because he believes that Kyari and his team successfully arrested drug traffickers that brought drugs into the country.
Ikpeazu stated this in an interview on Wednesday in Abuja where he questioned the role of the NDLEA in the saga involving 21.35 kg of cocaine.
He wondered why the NDLEA has continued to object to bail and has done everything possible to ensure the policemen do not get bail.
He explained that a good defence helps a judge to determine where guilt or innocence will lie, adding that Kyari “is a person that has added considerable value to society in many ways.”
According to him, the illicit drugs in dispute were intercepted by Kyari’s team at the parking lot of an airport, meaning that they must have been cleared to come into Nigeria by relevant authorities, including the NDLEA and not the police.
He said he would urge the court to see that bringing illicit drugs into Nigeria was the crime, not its interception within the country.
“When you look at the case itself (I’m not going into details) and ask, what precipitated the charge? It was that his (Kyari) unit was able to do that which the NDLEA was unable to do.
“They (Abba Kyari’s unit) were able to detect a drug cartel that had isolated the Enugu Airport (from Brazil to Ethiopia to Enugu Airport) for their drug transaction and they disseminate drugs all over the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
“They were able to intercept that. Now, the people they arrested were actually arrested at the parking lot of the Enugu Airport after they had been cleared by the drug agents at the same airport.
“Let me try and see how we can expose some of the things that actually transpired,” Ikpeazu said.
He explained that it was ironic for the civilians that trafficked the drugs to be freed from prison because they entered into a plea bargain with the NDLEA which is an agency of the federal government.
“The people that imported drugs, the drugs were not concealed, they were tendered in court; and the people that imported such demonic and dangerous substances to be circulated to our children will walk (out of prison), while the people that intercepted them for prosecution are now being prosecuted.
“That is the irony of it all. You may even classify this as a public interest litigation because that is what it is and I am doing it pro bono (free of charge).
“For instance, I defended Honourable Justice Ademola and prior to the time the case went to court, the court of public opinion had essentially convicted him but when we went into the case and interrogated and scrutinised the case of the prosecution, the case failed,” he added.
