How IRT Officers Led By Abba Kyari Threatened To Kill Me, My Partner – Convicted Drug rafficker

Chibunna Patrick Umeibe, a convicted drug trafficker has told the trial of suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police Abba Kyari and others, how officers from Kyari’s Intelligence Response Team (IRT) threatened to kill him and his partner.

Umeube stated this on Friday while being cross-examined by Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), counsel to Kyari and two others, before Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court in Abuja.

He described how a whistleblower from Brazil alerted the police IRT to their whereabouts.

Umeibe and Emeka Alphonsus Ezenwanne were arrested on January 19, this year, upon arrival at the Akanu Ibiam International Airport in Enugu after smuggling cocaine into the country from Ethiopia.

After pleading guilty to the charges brought against them by the National Drug Law Enforcement Agency, the pair was sentenced to six years in prison (NDLEA).

Meanwhile, as part of their plea bargain agreement, they agreed to testify as NDLEA witnesses in the trial of Kyari and others, including ACP Sunday Ubia, ASP Bawa James, Insp. Simon Agirigba, and Insp. John Nuhu, who are the second to fifth defendants.

Umeibe told the NDLEA’s lawyer, Joseph Sunday, that at the Enugu airport, he passed through health officials who checked COVID-19 records as well as immigration officers.

But “After Immigration, I met two young men in suit. They took my international passport and asked where I was coming from, I told them I was coming from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. They checked my passport and referred me to a checking counter. “I met about four or five men. They collected my passport and said, ‘young man, as you are looking fresh, do New Year for us’. I gave them N5,000.”

He claimed that as he was walking towards Ezenwanne, who was waiting for him in the parking lot, a man in mufti approached him and asked for his passport.

“I asked him why?” 

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a police ID card. 

“Other cops were standing behind me on mufti,” he added.

Umeibe went on to say that the policemen then pulled out their jackets with IRT inscriptions and arrested him and Ezenwanne.

Umeibe confirmed that the team was led by ASP James, who supervised the journey to the IRT Office in AAbuja.

“As we were approaching that Igala road (in Kogi), my hope was that they would leave us on the road, carry the market (cocaine), and go.”

“I started begging the man (James) again, ‘please sir, help us. He said if we disturbed him again, he would waste (kill) us; that we never reach people that they used to waste.”

He also told the court that he remained silent following the IRT operative’s stern warning.

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