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Court frees 'dead man' after 7 years in police cell
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A man, believed dead by his family, has been released from police custody on bail after seven years in detention without charge.
Ugochukwu Nwaokporo, now 24, was arrested in 2001, just after he arrived in the capital, Abuja, his family say.
He was allegedly tortured and shot in the leg by police in an attempt to force him to confess to armed robbery, he says.
A year later, his parents say that they were told Nwaokporo was dead and did not know he was still being held.
The police have been the subject of several reports by international human rights organisations who say they are guilty of arbitrary imprisonment, summarily executing detainees and routine torture.
Nwaokporo's parents say their son travelled from the south-eastern city of Onitsha to Abuja to find work in 2001.
"They told me he was dead, and I thought there was nothing I could do, so I went home," Peter Nwaokporo, Ugochukwu's father says.
Speaking for the first time since his release, Nwaokporo told the BBC News that he had arrived in a remote area of the capital at night and decided to stay in the motor park where his bus had dropped him.
A group of police officers were rounding up vagrants and they arrested him.
While in police custody, he was blindfolded, beaten and led out on to a piece of waste ground where he believed the police would kill him. The officers shot him in the leg.
"They told me if I confessed they would take me to a hospital. But I did not."
He treated his own wound with medical supplies brought to him by church groups who visited the police station cells where he was held.
But the first time he cleaned the wound it was with his own urine, his lawyer told the court.
His leg is now withered and almost useless, the bullet has broken the bone and it has not healed properly.
His father, a civil servant from Ebonyi State, was told of his son's arrest by one of the church groups who visited the jail.
He came to Abuja regularly to beg for his son's release, but was brushed off every time. Then in 2002 the family was told their son's name had been scrubbed off the list of inmates at the jail.
"They told me he was dead, and I thought there was nothing I could do, so I went home," Peter Nwaokporo told the BBC. 'The president' Ugochukwu Nwaokporo says that he was held in a cell in an Abuja police station for the whole seven years of his detention.
He was known among police officers as "the president" of the jail because he had been there so long, and some of them tried to help him, he says. But while there, he heard police summarily execute several armed robbery suspects.
"Sometimes I lost myself I was so afraid," he told the BBC.
In 2006, the police tried to bring charges of armed robbery against Nwaokporo in the High Court.
It was picked up by Nigeria's Legal Aid Council who appointed Nwaokporo a lawyer.
They didn't have anything on him, so they threw him back in jail perhaps hoping he would die Lawyer Nnaemeka Ejiofor
"They have not brought him to court in seven years to enter a plea. They want to keep him in prison as long as they can," his lawyer Nnaemeka Ejiofor said.
"When they arrested him, they didn't have anything on him, so they put him back in jail thinking that perhaps he would die. But by the grace of God he did not."
Ugochukwu Nwaokporo, now 24, was arrested in 2001, just after he arrived in the capital, Abuja, his family say.
He was allegedly tortured and shot in the leg by police in an attempt to force him to confess to armed robbery, he says.
A year later, his parents say that they were told Nwaokporo was dead and did not know he was still being held.
The police have been the subject of several reports by international human rights organisations who say they are guilty of arbitrary imprisonment, summarily executing detainees and routine torture.
Nwaokporo's parents say their son travelled from the south-eastern city of Onitsha to Abuja to find work in 2001.
"They told me he was dead, and I thought there was nothing I could do, so I went home," Peter Nwaokporo, Ugochukwu's father says.
Speaking for the first time since his release, Nwaokporo told the BBC News that he had arrived in a remote area of the capital at night and decided to stay in the motor park where his bus had dropped him.
A group of police officers were rounding up vagrants and they arrested him.
While in police custody, he was blindfolded, beaten and led out on to a piece of waste ground where he believed the police would kill him. The officers shot him in the leg.
"They told me if I confessed they would take me to a hospital. But I did not."
He treated his own wound with medical supplies brought to him by church groups who visited the police station cells where he was held.
But the first time he cleaned the wound it was with his own urine, his lawyer told the court.
His leg is now withered and almost useless, the bullet has broken the bone and it has not healed properly.
His father, a civil servant from Ebonyi State, was told of his son's arrest by one of the church groups who visited the jail.
He came to Abuja regularly to beg for his son's release, but was brushed off every time. Then in 2002 the family was told their son's name had been scrubbed off the list of inmates at the jail.
"They told me he was dead, and I thought there was nothing I could do, so I went home," Peter Nwaokporo told the BBC. 'The president' Ugochukwu Nwaokporo says that he was held in a cell in an Abuja police station for the whole seven years of his detention.
He was known among police officers as "the president" of the jail because he had been there so long, and some of them tried to help him, he says. But while there, he heard police summarily execute several armed robbery suspects.
"Sometimes I lost myself I was so afraid," he told the BBC.
In 2006, the police tried to bring charges of armed robbery against Nwaokporo in the High Court.
It was picked up by Nigeria's Legal Aid Council who appointed Nwaokporo a lawyer.
They didn't have anything on him, so they threw him back in jail perhaps hoping he would die Lawyer Nnaemeka Ejiofor
"They have not brought him to court in seven years to enter a plea. They want to keep him in prison as long as they can," his lawyer Nnaemeka Ejiofor said.
"When they arrested him, they didn't have anything on him, so they put him back in jail thinking that perhaps he would die. But by the grace of God he did not."
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