By Chioma Iruke
The Nigeria Police Force has been ordered by a High Court sitting in the Federal Capital Territory Abuja, to charge Gloria Okolie to court on or before August 31, 2021, or be granted bail in the sum of N2m with a Level 12 officer as bond and surety.
The court ruling is coming after over 70 days since the Intelligence Response Team (IRT) of the Police arrested and detained Gloria for an alleged link to the outlawed Indigenous People of Biafra’s (IPO) Eastern Security Network (ESN).
Human Rights Activist and Director-General, Behind Bars Initiative, Harrison Gwamnishu, confirmed the development to The PUNCH on Friday.
Gwamnishu and other activists had dragged the police to court to respect the fundamental rights to freedom of the 22-year-old detainee.
Gloria’s uncle, Christian Okolie, had said the policemen extorted N280,000 in bribes so far and demanded an additional N100,000 to free the young lady.
But the Police in a statement had said, “Investigations by the police team revealed that Gloria Okolie takes advantage of her gender and seemingly innocuous looks as camouflage to carry out espionage against military and police targets on behalf of IPOB/ESN.”
The National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and many human rights groups had faulted the continued detention of Gloria by the Police, and had demanded that the detainee should be released immediately or be charged to court to avail her of her right to fair hearing.
