Let’s meet you
I am Eze Apostle Justice Enejuba. ‘Eze uru di na Chukwu’, Eze Igbo, Apapa, Iganmu. I live at 44 Ajose Street, Apapa, Iganmu. My original work is teaching, and I have been doing it since 1980. By the grace of God, I am still managing myself. I was once a distributor for companies, but I stopped later because of sickness.
Now I am fully involved in the school and I also have a church, Best Disciple Power Ministry, where I gather my family and we pray. By the grace of God, we celebrate Christ every day in our lives.
Since you live in this neighborhood, have you had issues with anyone?
Not at all. I have been living in this community for over 40 years, nobody has attacked me. But you know that children can quarrel which will make parents exchange words. Aside from that, we have not had any attack that might lead us to the police station
At times when I see the quarrel is too much I can bring the police so the matter can be settled.
What happened that day?
It was on Friday, 28 February 2025 around 6 pm. I had a meeting with some of my cabinet members and some Igbos because I am the leader of the Igbos in that area. Around 7:pm, I began to hear serious noise, I felt some people were quarreling and I had to disperse the meeting and they all left.
As they left, I went to check what was happening when I saw that a man was pulling my daughter who is in the army. He asked my daughter if it was because of her uniform that he would put her in a pot. I asked the man to withdraw his statement, which he refused to do. I had to invite the police to avert further problems. I called Ogedemgbe who came and took the man to the station and he asked me to follow them as well.
As we were about to go, one woman from the other side of the local government ran into my place and began to hit my children with a bag. And I asked why she was doing that. She said because I am an Igbo man, why should I call the police for a Yoruba man if they even kill me, nobody will ask of me.
The woman is living behind me and the children are always making noise, throwing stones at my door. If my window is open and they throw stones, it injures people at times. If you asked who threw the stone, they would all deny it.
So, when my daughter wanted to rest she said, ‘Leave, I want to open this door but they refused and said they cannot go anywhere. When we got to the police station, the woman that hit my children with the bag, we didn’t know she planned something. She just jumped out with the brother and used a plastic bottle to hit my daughter on her face and I asked her, why are you people fighting us?
How old is she?
She is in her 40’s. I asked her why are you fighting us, we are not quarreling with you. She said as much as I touched a Yoruba person. I felt that the man hitting my daughter was a minor thing, I said okay when we get to the police station; we will settle it. When we got to the police station, we forgot to tell the police what the woman did.
After the police cautioned them, the next morning Saturday, they came to my house to apologize and promised it would not happen again, they told me that the people disturbing me were my people and I asked how. They said that it’s not this very compound but the next compound. They told me they had called the landlord of the place to complain to him about his tenants and they even agreed never to do it again.
They apologized which I accepted and advised that we must live in peace. That Saturday around 12 noon, my daughter went out and the same woman jumped out from her shop and was shouting fake army. My daughter kept quiet and when she came back, she said the woman was calling her ‘fake army’. I asked her if that was her name, she should not respond because the woman was not the one that gave her the uniform.
On Sunday she did the same thing. When my daughter got to work on Monday, the Madam asked her what happened to her face, which she explained. The boss then asked her to report the matter to the military police so they could arrest the culprit. However, the woman simply called Iya Ishola has a male friend who always stays with her in the shop and usually comes with Okada and sits there.
Immediately my daughter reported to the military police, they asked her what she wanted, and she told them she wanted the person arrested. When she described the person, they called the officer and told him that ‘in your area, they want to bring military police there. He asked who they wanted to arrest, they told him a fair complexion woman and the boy in his shop. He told them not to give her police, they should rather weave the case around her and detain her.
My daughter then asked why would they want to detain her, and then left. On Tuesday, she went to work and told her Madam. The Madam asked her to go back to the military police and report again that she was monitoring them. If you watch the video when the Naval people came to beat my wife, was when they were calling her because she was at her duty place. From there she now went to the Naval police office.
The Officer saw her going there, he ran back to tell them here and that’s when they called the OP MESA team. The officer said he saw her and my daughter confirmed she saw the officer but didn’t know where he was going.
Then I asked her, why they denied you military police, because before she came back from work, this Navy came, and beat up my wife and the students in the school. There was noise. The way they beat the children made them run back home to tell their parents that OP MESA came to their school to chase everyone away. It took the grace of God to bring the children back under one week. As we were nursing the pain, the same group of people went to call one military commander not knowing they had an ulterior motive. She called the man and the man said, gather all the family I want to address them.
As the man was talking to my family, a group of boys with dangerous weapons tried to gain access to my compound. They were shooting into the air and I became afraid because I thought they were hired assassins. I remember the woman always boasting that her junior brother is a cultist, they can kill anybody and nothing will happen.
When we saw them climbing the fence and the iron gate, I said what’s happening? Before we knew it, they started flogging us with pipes and sticks. They beat my wife, rolled her on the ground like common criminal, dragged her to the waiting vehicle. The same they also handled other people as well. I was not among the people they beat because I escaped, that was around 8:20-8:30 pm. I called the police but before they could come they had gone. I began to call I couldn’t sleep because my children and wife, all nine in number were carried away. Everything is in the video.
I stayed outside and they were laughing at me ‘Shebi you dey lock your gate, when they come they broke the gate and climbed and came inside, I couldn’t do anything’. When the police came they said they cannot do anything because they culprits have gone.
The DPO went back. The following day I followed my daughter to the office to know why they denied her military police. When we got there they didn’t allow us to say anything. They said my daughter is a military personnel and they already have a pending case against her. Why did she put on a uniform in the father’s house I asked them, is it a criminal thing, is it not an honour? The woman was with us and she said my daughter carried a belt. They asked her if my daughter came to shop with the belt, and she said no that her arrogance is too much.
The officer asked the woman how she got the OP MESA number or if was it their office number, she said one of them is her boyfriend and another one is her sister’s boyfriend as well and there are a lot of other uniform men that visit her shop.They asked her, are you not married why did you gather men? As the man was interrogating her, one tall army officer came in and said ‘Oga, come and he took him outside. They spent almost one hour and when he came back, he didn’t ask further questions. He said ‘Oga, you can take the matter to the police station but I will lock your daughter.
I said for what offence, he told me she is a military personnel and they know what they are doing. I told him, tell me what I want to hear because I couldn’t bear the suspense again. He said I will go to Beecroft and see the Navy Commander there and make my report. I went there the next day and they took me to the officer in charge. He watched the video and asked if I am sure those boys are Naval personnels. I said yes. He called the Commander and other officers and they came and spoke in Hausa and he showed them the video.
They shook their heads, one of the oga, called me out and I followed him to his car, we drove down to under the bridge. I asked him where is this place, he said this is where they always stay, a dusty place. I asked him if this was where they brought my wife and tortured her.
After we talked, he asked one of the men there who asked them to go for this operation and he said the other oga. I asked him, ‘As their oga, what did they tell you they went to do? He said there was a Navalman that fought at Ijora -Badiya and they went to get him so that civilians would not wound him. From there they went for the operation and they sent only two Naval personnels, the driver and the second person but I told him the soldiers that came were more than four and that night two Hilux came and they said you it was one operational vehicle. my children have the number of those vehicles that came as 701 and 709. I sent the message to him and he accepted that 709 is their vehicle but they don’t know 701. My wife told me that the night they tortured them, the man who drove 701 said he wanted to go because he needed to refuel. So, if you don’t know about the other vehicle, how can you buy fuel for them?All these things showed they came to kill and from what they said that the gun they carried was Air force gun.
One told me that the 701 is OP MESA Air Force. In my own case, they came to my place to murder me and my family because they didn’t follow due process. They didn’t register the case, they just came to kill because they feel we have nobody. The kind of beating they gave to my family was something meant to kill. How can you tie somebody’s hand at the back and you were beating the person. I opened the video and showed him what they did.
After narrating everything, the officer knelt and begged. I said why must you beg me with uniform, it will be as if the whole of Nigeria is begging. He commanded all the women to kneel and beg me. I said there’s a culture in every tribe. As Yoruba, you are only performing your culture; kneeling down. I said I will not say anything for now, let me go and treat my family. It took me two to three days to take care of my family’s treatment.The small one, a year and five months, they flogged that one with pipes and he was injured. He is still on drip now. The cost of the treatment I couldn’t afford it. After the treatment if I say give me doctor’s report, they will begin to charge you.
The point is that if anybody knows what they will do to bring out the truth especially for that woman to come and tell me what my family did to her to warrant this beating and harassment. If you know what you can do so that people in authority can help me please, help me and my family.
