A police official has dragged his neigbour to court over breeding dogs and other dangerous animals, however family source claims police representative abuses powers.
Nigerian Times reports with reference to the original police report that the 67-year-old neighbour identified as Chukwujuidu Aligbe was charged with “criminal conspiracy, disturbance of public peace and making atmosphere noxious to health”.
The man’s problems were believed to have started August 27 after two of his dogs had fought with each other, which caused noise and resulted in the Commissioner’s outrage.
Following the incident, the Commissioner of Police (CP) in charge of Police Pensions Office allegedly ordered arrest of Aligbe and kept him in Keffi jail for 2 days, a family source said. Meanwhile the neigbour was scared to comment on the issue when visited by Nigerian Times correspondent at his residence in Mararaba, Nasarawa State, in fear of further consequences.
t was gathered that the detained man was shocked to find out at the police station that he had been charged with criminal act under the directive of the CP, who probably decided to exercise his power.
The statement suggested that Aligbe is “breeding almost forty dogs, monkeys and other dangerous and wild animals in your dwelling residential house for commercial purposes“. However the family source characterized the allegations as false saying:
That is the aspect that is not true. We have no monkeys, nor wild animals. What we have here is only 10 dogs and few birds, which are in cages.This allegation is not true. Where in this compound can one keep monkey and wild animals.”
The source said that nobody in the neigbourhood had ever complaint about the gods although Aligbe has kept them for 14 years.
The correspondent visited the residence of the accused to confirm that there were only dogs and birds and no wild animals.
However the elderly man was kept in prison till August 29 after having been refused a bail by the trial judge, Vincent Gwahemba. Only due to the intervention of some church members the man was released. At the resumed hearing held last Monday the judge spoke about the possibility of amicable settling out of court and lamented that such a case had been considered at court at all.
But the case has been reportedly adjourned to September 22 as the prosecution refused to settle the matter amicably.
Reacting to the development, Foursquare Gospel Church pastor, Rev. Julius Msheliza, expressed his shock saying:
“The case is still in court, we therefore wait to see what the final outcome will be. The final outcome will decide whether we will be satisfied or not. So at this moment we are still waiting what the conclusion will be. I was disappointed the way he was arrested because I was in court when the whole issue started. He was accused of keeping dogs in his house and I don’t know when keeping has become a criminal case, and within 15 minutes he was thrown into Keffi Prison. To me that is not right.”
He hoped that the matter would be solved in accordance with the law and if Aligbe was be cleared of charges, the Police Commissioner should bear responsibility for accusing the innocent.
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