Air passenger protesting against Tinubu arraigned, remanded in custody

Mr. Obiajulu Uja, an anti-Tinubu traveler on an Abuja-Lagos flight, has been charged before the Zuba Magistrates’ Court in Abuja and held in custody.

This was revealed by his attorney, Ejike Ugwu, on Monday.

Uja was removed from a Lagos-Abuja aircraft on Friday night after he began a solitary protest asking that Bola Tinubu never be inaugurated in as president on May 29.

In the video that went viral on Saturday, it took no fewer than six airport security officers’ efforts to evacuate him after he had delayed the plane for more than an hour as of 7pm.

According to a copy of the charge sheet seen stated that, Uja was accused of “behavior likely to create a breach of peace pursuant to sections 396, 267, 188, 172, and 144 of the Criminal Code Law,” as well as “public disturbance, resistance to a legitimate arrest, threatening violence, and behaviour.”

The attorney stated, “They misled us because yesterday he was transported to Muhammadu Buhari Police Hospital, Area 11 Abuja, and he was arraigned at the Zuba Magistrates’ Court as a result.”

The attorney said that his client had been admitted at the Muhammadu Buhari Police Hospital, but that neither a psychiatrist nor a psychologist were available to evaluate him there.

However, he claimed that although a physician from the National Hospital in Abuja had been requested to check Uja, the attempt had sadly been in vain.

 “While we were there, it was around 3pm they told us that they wanted  to arraign him in Zuba Magistrates’ Court.

“We reminded the court that the same police invited the doctor to examine him, and the same police instead of waiting for the doctors to examine him hurriedly charged him to court.

“Even with the test we did, we spent almost N40,000 at the Police clinic, all the tests they conducted we abandoned all of them; they have not prescribed any medicine.

“The way the police are handling it is as if they have an interest in the matter because you took somebody to a police clinic, you are coming to court to tell the court you want the person to be remanded in prison because you want to continue the investigation.

“Until now we do not know the result of the test that was conducted in the hospital because they hurriedly took him away from the hospital,” the lawyer said.

Ugwu added that the hearing for his client’s bail application was scheduled for Thursday.