Kyari disclosed this through his lawyer, Nureini Jimoh, while asking the Federal High Court in Abuja to review his bail application initially rejected.
According to him, the rising insecurity challenges in Nigeria won’t have escalated to this extent if he had not been detained.
Recall that the Nigerian Police on February 14, 2022 handed over DCP Abba Kyari, who is an erstwhile Commander of Intelligence Response Team (IRT) and four others: ACP Sunday J. Ubua; ASP Bawa James; Inspector Simon Agirgba and Inspector John Nuhu to the NDLEA over involvement in a 25 kilograms Cocaine deal and running of drug a cartel.
Kyari and his team were also linked to an alleged seizure of a large consignment of Tramadol in a warehouse at Amuwo-Odofin area of Lagos which worth N3billion imported into Nigeria by an individual who claimed to be a pharmacist.
The once super-cop who is currently being remanded at Kuje maximum prison in Abuja had earlier being suspended by the police after the United States’ Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) indicted him in the fraud case of a popular fraudster, Ramon Abbas, known as Hushpuppi. The US authourities said Kyari was a conspirator with Hushpuppi in a $1.1 million deal to defraud a Qatari businessman.
Kyari argued before the court that the country had become a hotbed of crises ever since his arrest, citing instances of insecurity such as the Abuja – Kaduna train bombing on March 28, the Kaduna airport attack, as well as rampant banditry on the road linking Kaduna to Abuja.
The statement partly reads: “Upon the incarceration of the applicants, criminality in the nation has risen up. The Kaduna train attack, Kaduna-Abuja road attack as well as Kaduna airport attack was a result of the incarceration of the applicants.”
“The entire plan to incarcerate the applicants led to the criminal upsurge and other high level insecurity in the country. Since the incarceration of the applicants, the police have not recorded any level of success on the senseless attack(s) across the country,” he said.
Pleading to be granted bail, the disgraced cop said his life and that of his accomplices were at risk sharing the correctional facility with criminals that they put in jail, including IPOB/ESN fighters, Onye army, terrorists from Kuje/Nyanya-Abuja bombing and more.
“At the centre, the applicants who were Head and deputy head of the Intelligence Response Team of the Nigeria Police Force met stiff resistance, attack and open threats to the lives of the applicants by series head of criminal gang that they had bursted.
“There is no correctional centre that the criminals that have been arrested by the IRT under the headship of the applicant in furtherance of their constitutional and statutory duties as police officers cannot be found and there is a high likelihood of threat to the lives of the applicants,” he argued.
Abba Kyari’s bail was previously denied by the trial judge, Justice Emeka Nwike. The embattled police have subsequently been reported to have refused to take the food prepared in the correctional facilities but his wife and other family members.
