Onyechi Ikpeazu who is the counsel for suspended Deputy Commissioner of Police, Abba Kyari and Assistant Commissioner of Police, Sunday Ubia, on Thursday informed Justice Emeka Nwite of the Federal High Court that his clients are under threat of attack by inmates whose arrest the officers had once facilitated.
At the resumed hearing on Thursday, the lawyer said an application seeking bail for the 1st, 2nd, 4th and 5th defendants had been filed and served on the National Drug Law and Enforcement Agency (NDLEA).
The bail application, according to the defence counsel was necessary following a threat to the lives of his clients in the Kuje Correctional Centre.
Ikpeazu said his clients were in danger because of the nature of the work the defendants had done in the course of policing the country and now being remanded with criminals in the correctional centre, who through them, their arrests were made possible.
The senior lawyer said their lives are at risk, hence, the need for their bail.
The four suspended police officers namely ACP Ubia, ASP Bawa James, Insp Simon Agirigba and Insp. John Nuhu, listed as 2nd to 5th defendant respectively are being charged by the NDLEA for an alleged drug offence alongside Kyari. While Ubia, Agirigba and Nuhu sought bail over an attempted murder, Bawa did not apply for bail.
However, the counsel for the prosecution (NDLEA), Sunday Joseph, opposed the request that the bail plea should be taken.
Kyari had on May 10 complained about not being safe in detention with members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and Eastern Security Network (ESN), whom he described as criminals.
Kyari at the time disclosed this through his lawyer, Nureini Jimoh, while asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to review his bail application initially rejected.
He insisted that the matter was scheduled for review of the facts of the 6th and 7th defendants who pleaded guilty to the counts preferred against them.
