Abba Kyari Asked Me To Pay The Proceeds Of Hotel Owned By Kidnap Kingpin Into My Bank Account

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A lawyer attached to the Inspector General of Police
Intelligence Response Team (IGP-IRT), Nosa Uhumwangho, has
explained how the embattled ‘Super Cop’, Abba Kyari, made him pay
the proceed from a hotel owned by an alleged kidnap kingpin into
his account.

Uhumwangho stated this while appearing before the Nigerian Bar
Association Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee (LPDC) on
Wednesday.

The lawyer said Kyari told him to pay the sum of N3, 075, 300,
which was generated from De-English hotel, Enugu and another
property at 21, Edinburgh Street, owned by late Collins Ezenwa also
known as E-Money, an alleged kidnapper, into his (Uhumwangho’s)
bank.

Kyari, who was suspended from the Nigerian Police Force, is
under investigation after an indictment by the US Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) over his relationship with a popular fraudster,
Ramon Abbas, popularly called Hushpuppi.

He has denied the allegations of corruption leveled against
him.

But in a 131 paragraph affidavit on 30 June 2021, and submitted
to the NBA’s LPDC, obtained by Sahara Reporters, Not
TheNigerialawyer Uhumwangho said Kyari had authorized him to pay
the money into his Zenith Bank personal account for “reasons best
known to them”.

The lawyer also stated in the affidavit that Kyari’s team had
previously instructed Tochukwu Okeke, a notorious cult member to
collect rents from properties owned by late Ezenwa on his
behalf.

Okeke is currently being detained at the 82 Division of the
Nigerian army over his alleged sponsorship of members of the
Indigenous People of Biafra in the southeast.

Okeke, who refused to appear before the National Human Rights
Commission (NHRC) panel investigating the activities of SARS, had
claimed that he paid $2 million ransom to late Ezenwa’s gang after
he was kidnapped in 2016.

Uhumwangho was dragged to the NBA disciplinary committee by a
lawyer and human rights activist, Justice Ijeoma, for “conduct
unbecoming of a legal practitioner”.

In his petition to the NBA-LDPC, Ijeoma alleged that Uhumagho,
acting in cahoots with other police officers attached to the
Inspector General of Police –Intelligence Response Team (IGP-IRT),
criminally converted the properties of his client.

Uhumagho, under cross-examination by Ijeoma’s lead counsel, Max
Ogar, admitted paying the money into his personal account based on
the directive of his boss, Abba Kyari.

In a letter dated 28 January 2019 obtained by Sahara Reporters,
Abba Kyari wrote, “ The National Human Rights Commission of Nigeria
(Presidential Panel on SARS Reforms) which sat in Abuja on 25th
January, 2019, directed the Legal Officer of IGP-IRT to recover
money in possession of any person controlling the aforesaid
properties and make them render account.

“In view of the above-stated fact, you are hereby
directed/ordered to recover any money therefrom and take possession
and make sure it is properly kept and safe in your custody, because
if paid into the Police account, it will be difficult to recover it
and tender it before the court as the matter is still pending at
the Honourable Federal High Court, Owerri Judicial Division. The
court may make demand for it in the nearest future.

“Thank you for your patriotic zeal in serving the Nigeria Police
Force and your motherland to the best of your ability and
capability. Accept the assurance of my high esteem regard.”

However, sources from the NHRC panel, which sat between 14th and
26th January 2019, denied authorizing Kyari to collect any money on
late Ezenwa’s property and pay into a private account.

In 2018, Amnesty International and National Human Rights
Commission accused Kyari of illegally depleting assets of Collins
Ezenwa who was illegally executed by SARS in Owerri, Imo State.

Collins Ezenwa’s wife told the NHRC panel that Kyari and his
team withdrew money from her late husband’s bank account, seized
his cars for their private use and pocketed millions in
accommodation proceeds from his hotels and properties.

The Nigerian Human Rights Commission said in an October 2018
petition to the then Inspector-General, Ibrahim Idris, that the
IRT, led by Abba Kyari, a deputy police commissioner, had depleted
the asset of Collins Ezenwa, a suspected kidnapper who was gunned
down in January 2018.

Kyari had said Ezenwa was a notorious kidnapper who had
committed untold atrocities before he was killed.

The police in Imo State accused Ezenwa, a former police
corporal, of leading a syndicate of deadly abductors. He was killed
during an exchange of gunfire along the Enugu-Owerri
Expressway.

Kyari and his team members were said to have taken over Ezenwa’s
properties worth billions of naira.

A hotel linked to Ezenwa in Enugu was estimated at N220,000,000.
He also had two duplexes and eight blocks of flats worth a combined
N180 million, according to the NHRC petition.

The victim, who was a police corporal before he resigned, also
had a fleet of exotic vehicles. Other properties of Ezenwa have
also been identified in Imo and Abia states, estimating his worth
in billions.