Air-Force Men Reconstruct/Brutalize Business Man As Dame Patience Jonathan Visits Delta

A Warri-based businessman, Mr. Larry
Otu, has called for investigation and justice
into the brutality allegedly meted out on
him by men of the Nigerian Air Force at the
Osubi Airstrip, Warri, where security was
beefed up over Dame Patience Jonathan’s
visit to Delta State, yesterday.
Narrating his ordeal to our correspondent , Otu,
Chief Executive Officer of LYM Consult, said
he was at the airstrip to receive his
technical partners from Canada when men
from the Warri Air Force Unit stationed at
the facility attacked him.He said:
“It happened at about 9am, when our
foreign partners arrived the airport
and I was there to clear them at the
Immigration desk. I drove to the gates
to face interrogation from the Air
Force men.
“One asked if I knew the President’s
wife was coming today. I said yes, but
that I have come to pick my foreign
partners. He asked what I do for a
living; I said I own the company being
visited by our technical partners and
he said
‘as small as you are?’
“He said okay, find me something. I
said I cannot give you anything. So he
ordered me to reverse my car and
leave. He said I cannot drive in.
“I reversed my car, drove back to the
main road and was trekking down to
go in when a team of the force men,
numbering about eight, pounced on
me.”
Otu said his attackers dragged him from
there to a point behind their caravan office
at the airport and continued the beating,
kicking, punching and hitting with their
guns, adding it took the intervention of his
manager who approached one of the
officers before the assault was halted.
He said:
“It turned out that my manager knew
one of the Air Force officers at the
airport. He ran in to tell him that it
was his company’s chairman that was
being manhandling.
“That was when the officer came and
ordered them to stop and let me go.
But before I was left with a battered,
bloodied face, N200,000 was taken
from my pocket by one of them.”
The victim called on relevant authorities to
ensure justice by bringing the culprits to
book.
He said:
“I know the man who started it all
and I know the one that took N200,000
from my pocket. We cannot continue
to live in this kind of country. Justice
must be done.”
When contacted, Commanding Officer at
the 61 NAF Detachment of the Nigerian Air
Force, Warri, Air Commodore, A. D.
Dudusola, whose men assaulted the victim,
said:
“I was not present when it happened,
but they said he was rude.
“Why must it be only him? That is the
question that comes to mind. Others
came to the airport, identified
themselves properly and were allowed
in.
“Nobody was touched, so he must have
been rude.
“My brother, it is better to face other
challenges than to face the worry that
somebody came to the airport and
blast himself, because it is not always
written in somebody’s face. That is the
truth.
“We can apologize to him later, but we
had to do our job first so that
somebody will not create problem for
us.”