Arukwe, who spoke to SaharaReporters on Friday morning, confirmed that he was granted bail on March 26. He added that his bail conditions were perfected on March 27 and he was released from prison on March 28.
Awgu Chief Magistrate Court of Enugu State Magisterial District has granted bail to the detained activist, Charles Arukwe, who was remanded in prison custody for alleged forgery after exposing police extortion.
Arukwe, who spoke to SaharaReporters on Friday morning, confirmed that he was granted bail on March 26. He added that his bail conditions were perfected on March 27 and he was released from prison on March 28.
He said that he had been in hospital since his release because of the injuries the policemen inflicted on him when they invaded his house. He added that his two Android smartphones containing information including visuals of police extortion at Awgu police division were destroyed after his phones were seized from him.
"Also they removed my memory cards and destroyed them with SIM cards," he said.
SaharaReporters reported on March 19 that the Enugu State Police Command had arrested, brutalised, arraigned, and remanded in prison custody the rights activist, accusing him of forging a motorcycle sale agreement.
A police source had told SaharaReporters that Arukwe was arrested following his consistent petitions against the police operatives attached to the Awgu police station over unbridled extortion of money from residents over the years.
In a three-count charge marked MGB/13c/2023, which SaharaReporters obtained, the police accused Arukwe of forging a motorcycle sale agreement, an allegation the lawyer who prepared the agreement has faulted.
The charge was first taken before a Senior Magistrate, His Worship Jude Umezulike on January 8, 2023, and he rejected it for lack of evidence to support the charge.
However, the police brought the charge up again before Magistrate P.U. Igwiloh, who remanded the activist in custody on Friday, March 15, 2024, despite openly stating in the courtroom that there was no evidence of forgery.
But after staying for over 30 minutes inside her chamber, the magistrate came out and remanded the activist in prison custody.
The charge had the police commissioner as the complainant and Ekene Charles Arukwe as the accused.
Meanwhile, Mr Fidelis Onuma, who prepared the sale agreement had told SaharaReporters that the charge was a pure police witch-hunt against Arukwe for being a stumbling block to their extortions.
Onuma said: "Actually that document was not forged; that is the mistake police make sometimes. I also visited the police station and made a statement that the document was not forged. It was my seal that was fixed in that document and I signed it myself, so where do you talk about forgery here?
"What the DCO (Divisional Crime Officer) told me was that the woman who sold the motorcycle to Arukwe didn't sign as at the date the document was purported to have been written. But that should be an arrangement between the purchaser and the seller; it can be signed at any moment.
“The woman was saying that she signed the document sometime in April while the document was prepared in September the previous year. I told the police that we reached out to the woman but her phone did not connect because I ought to have seen the seller before preparing the document since she was not available to personally come to my office but I requested the original copy of the receipt of the purchase of the motorcycle and I saw it.
"The original copies of the purchase of the motorcycle were given to Arukwe who was brought to me by the woman. So it was based on the original documents given to him by the woman that I prepared the agreement.
“So after the agreement document had been prepared, we reached out to the woman but she wasn't available. I was told that she is an Evangelist and always out of the town. I said okay, take it to her, let her take it to her lawyer to explain to her the content of the agreement before she could sign.
"Arukwe left and I didn't see him again till I was called at the police station that the document was forged. You can't talk about forgery when I owned up to the content of the document and I am the maker with my stamp and seal on it.
“Assuming Arukwe had signed the woman's signature, you can talk about the forgery of her signature but the woman admitted to having signed the document but she signed on a different date. We are not talking about stolen property here.
“Nobody complained that the motorcycle was stolen. The fact is a forgery, so how do you establish forgery - you bring the original writeup or signature and juxtapose it with the supposed forged writeup or signature.
"But in this case, the woman owned up and said I signed my signature but it wasn't at the time Arukwe was saying I signed that I signed. So, where is the forgery? Arukwe said that the woman signed before her husband as a witness and the husband also confirmed it. It calls for evidence and definitely I will testify in the case."
He added, "So, it has been a recurrent decimal on the side of the Awgu Divisional Police for many years with Arukwe of which I have been handling his matter sometimes. It is a pure case of witch-hunt because Arukwe has been denying them access to all the N20,000 or N5,000 they collect as bail, so they are not happy with him. This charge is simply a trumped-up charge to get at Arukwe," he said.