Human rights activist, Omoyele Sowore, has visited Mairiga Hassan Shaharu, the Abuja Geographic Information System official falsely accused of leaking Nyesom Wike’s land robbery to Peoples Gazette, at a police station in Abuja to demand his immediate release.

“I visited the police post tonight with two human rights lawyers, Rosemary Hamza and Ak Musa,” Mr Sowore wrote on X shortly after the visit on Thursday. 

He added, “We were later joined by a third lawyer who had tried unsuccessfully to secure Mairiga’s release earlier. According to him, Wike’s CSO used a forged court order to detain Mairiga.

“The IPO on the case refused to show the order. When the lawyer managed to glance at it, he discovered the order came from a magistrate who no longer presides in the jurisdiction, a clear evidence of forgery and abuse of office.”

Mr Sowore further accused FCT police commissioner Wale Ajao of conniving to unlawfully detain the civil servant.

“I called CP Ajao directly, but he pretended the detention was based on a valid court order—unaware that we had already confirmed the order was fake. He repeated the same tactic, ‘Go to court’,” Mr Sowore explained. “Wike should be the one under investigation for allocating public lands to his children, a clear criminal conduct, not Citizen Mairiga.”

On Tuesday, a team of police detectives arrested Mr Shaharu amidst a frantic hunt for the source of The Gazette’s exposé of Mr Wike’s unconscionable theft of Abuja lands for his children.

Mr Shaharu’s colleagues said they expected Mr Wike to continue making mistakes by arresting and punishing low-to-mid-level officials who were unconnected with The Gazette’s sourcing of the documents that illustrated the extent of the minister’s loot.

Officials also said the minister had become paranoid and increased his consumption of alcohol in the days following our first report on the matter.