A Coalition of Civil Society Organisations has called on members of the public to beware of the activities of a dubious group of blackmailers parading as a public advocacy group on the death of Keren Akpagher, a student of the Premier Academy, Lugbe, Abuja.
The alarm was raised by the Coalition’s Coordinator, Deacon Okezi Odugala, in a statement he issued on Monday.
Odugala said it was now evident that having failed in its bid to blackmail officials at the Premiere Academy, the notorious agents of public acrimony, allegedly led by one Lemmy Ughegbe, have turned their attention on the Delta State Government.
The Coalition leader assured that Ughegbe was sure to fail because the state government was not in any way involved in its civil society actions.
Odugala’s words: “I was appointed as a member of the Delta State Procurement Council in personal recognition, to represent Civil Society. How does this stop my civil society advocacy? Ughegbe, an unknown quantity has revealed himself as a clear blackmailer to have stated that Delta State government was involved in our stance that the police release the autopsy report on Miss Akpagher, and that the final 48hours of the child, in the custody of her family, as well as the medical procedures used by the doctor in whose clinic she died, be thoroughly investigated.
“Come to think of it? Why are Ughegbe and his co-travelers so implacably opposed to the interrogation of Miss Akpagher’s final moments? Is it because such an investigation will put a pin to their balloon of lies and mischief? Is it because they know that the poor child actually died from the mismanagement of her type 1 diabetes by the clinic that handled her emergency, and probably not from salacious insinuations that emerging facts do not support?”
Odugala, on behalf of the Coalition, sternly condemned what it called petty, barefaced blackmail deployed by Ughegbe and his cohorts in the name of public advocacy on the death of Akpagher.
He said: “Ughegbe and his band of blackmailers are only out to befuddle the ordinarily straightforward issues surrounding the death of Akpagher. Their sickening strategy is to make it difficult for members of the public to separate the facts from fiction.
“It is unprofessional and shameful for a group to hide under the banner of public advocacy to foul up a crucial police investigation with sensational and unguarded insinuations of guilt and condemnation.
“The public institutions empowered to declare judgment and conviction are clear and known, and no such institutions have gone near indicating any party with regards to the death of the student.
“Blackmailers and characters hiding under whatever fanciful names must not be allowed to usurp the role of the police and the courts in the guise of advocacy.”
