I Lost Over N200 Million - Raggae Music Star, Victor Essiet Recounts Ordeal In SARS Detention

Veteran Reggae music Victor Essiet of the 1980's band the Mandators is not willing to forget in a hurry his ordeal in the hands of the men of the Special Anti- Robbery squad, SARS.

In an interview with National Mirror, the music explains how he was illegally kidnapped and detained by the police who was led by a former business associate on the 29th November, 2014 to the venue of his first annual reggae festival, "Africa Meets Reggae and World Music" at the National Stadium, Surulere, Lagos.

"I was attacked and seriously brutalised which led to Africa Meets Reggae losing over two hundred million naira in the process and I was hospitalised for months. However, I had to follow due process by seeking redress in the court of law, against all the parties involved as it is done in America where I reside and other countries in the western world.

We have been attending court sessions without any respondents showing up in court, as it was very difficult serving all the people involved, but at last my attorneys have to apply options provided by the law to get everyone served."

"Unknowingly to me, the police were planning to get me kidnapped because I had sought a redress in the court against them and the individual whom they collaborated with, to infringe on my fundamental human right. This, they achieved on Saturday morning at about 2:30 am.

They came in a convoy, numbering fifteen with masks on their faces, armed to the teeth and forcefully took me away from the company of my friends and family members who were with me coming back from the wake keep of my late brother at our family compound, going to Uyo so I could take my brother’s corpse in the morning back to my village for burial. This happened in the middle of the road. Since this incident happened, I have not seized to ask myself questions.

Why would the police as an institution mask their faces if their intentions were not to abduct and kill me? Why would riffles be given to some civilians and be made to be in the company of the police? I am saying so because I realised that they were not all members of the Police Force. I was able to spot two of them they had difficulty trying to identify me from my friends who were in the vehicle with me and also had dreadlocks like me. At the process of trying to identify me, both pulled their masks."

"As the individual that I helped to get a Mack truck for in America since he didn’t have enough money to purchase the same here in Nigeria, refused to pay me the five thousand dollars that I put down to be able to secure the truck for him. Instead, he gave me a hundred and fifty thousand naira and that led to my disassociation from him.

In other to avoid paying me the money, he decided to go and deal with the country directly after one year and two months without my knowledge but when he got his fingers burnt, he came back, trying to put it on me that he gave me eighty- six thousand dollars for five trucks.

I dare him to prove with evidence his claims in the law court and stop using his police friends to try to intimidate and brutalise me, get me kidnapped and killed. At this point, I would like to let the world know that even my attorney was threatened on the 29th of June by an unknown phone call not to appear in court.

 

So he had to go to human right commission to seek company. Should anything happen to me or my family members, my attorneys, my employees and associates, these officers and their superiors should be held responsible."