BY AHMED AKANBI
The Committee for the Defence of Human Rights (CDHR) has accused the police and anti-graft agencies of failing to investigate petitions alleging signature forgery and tax evasion against Alpha-Beta Consulting, while allegedly persecuting a former staff, Comrade Segun Oluwasanmi.
The Lagos State branch of CDHR made the allegation at a world press conference in Lagos on Tuesday, where it called for an independent probe of some police officers involved in the matter and urged the Inspector-General of Police, Olatunji Disu to intervene.
According to the group, it submitted petitions between October and December 2025 to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC); Independent Corrupt Practices and other related offences Commission (ICPC), and the Lagos State Police Command including Zone 2, over alleged financial irregularities and signature forgery involving Alpha-Beta and one of its officials, Olumide Hezekiah Idowu.
It said the petitions were acknowledged but no meaningful investigation was carried out, alleging selective justice.
”It is worrisome that security agencies demonstrate open bias through selective discharge of justice,” the group said, claiming the police instead moved to implicate and silence Oluwasanmi.
CDHR said police action was triggered by a June 2, 2025 petition from Alpha-Beta over anonymous internal emails allegedly circulated by staff demanding better welfare, insisting that Oluwasanmi could not have authored the emails as he had resigned on January 7, 2025, five months before they were written.
It said Oluwasanmi was interrogated by the State Intelligence Department, SID, on November 3, 2025, in the presence of his lawyer and CDHR representatives and was cleared.
It however accused ASP Austine Ekpenyong Odiong of retaliatory conduct after disciplinary complaints were filed against him over the treatment of one Mrs Ayodele.
CDHR alleged that Oluwasanmi was invited under the pretext of a reconciliation meeting and then arrested and detained for 42 hours in January 2026.
It also faulted the charges filed at Ogba Magistrate Court, claiming the sections of the Lagos Administration of Criminal Justice Law cited do not exist, adding that Oluwasanmi spent 14 days in custody before regaining freedom.
The group further alleged that on June 30, 2026, ASP Odiong attempted to arrest Oluwasanmi inside court during proceedings, and that police and Alpha-Beta later served him court processes for a Federal High Court case it claimed had been filed months earlier, describing it as abuse of court process.
CDHR said statements from some Alpha-Beta employees arrested over the anonymous emails did not implicate Oluwasanmi but allegedly indicted others who were not arraigned.
”We reasonably believe these actions of systematic persecution and harassment are a retaliatory vendetta designed to intimidate and silence him,” it said.
It urged the IGP to review the charges, halt the alleged harassment of a whistleblower, and probe ASP Odiong, and called on EFCC and ICPC to revive investigation into its petitions against Alpha-Beta.
The group said it will mobilise journalists and civil society for the next hearing on September 23, 2026, at the Federal High Court, Ikoyi, before Justice Luis Alagoa.