The Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC) has called on the Inspector-General of Police to urgently intervene following the reported detention of two minors, 16-year-old Chinedu Eyah and 15-year-old Kosisochukwu Onojo, by police officers said to be attached to Area F, Ikeja, Lagos.
According to a press statement issued by the Executive Director of RULAAC, Okechukwu Nwanguma, the boys were arrested after they had gone to Jibowu Park to deliver inverter batteries to a customer on behalf of businessman Timothy Chika Odoh, also known as Chika Onwa Odo. Officers reportedly took them to Odoh’s residence before arresting them along with the batteries in their possession.
Odoh alleges that one of the officers, identified only as “Mr Lawal,” told him he not the boys was the actual target of a police complaint. Despite this, RULAAC says the two minors remain in custody.
“If either child is reasonably suspected of personally committing an offence, the allegation should be disclosed and investigated with full observance of the safeguards applicable to children,” the organisation said. “If they are being detained merely because the Police are looking for Chika, they should be released immediately.”
RULAAC insisted that no relative or associate should be held to pressure another person to submit to arrest. “Children, spouses, workers or relatives must not be used as substitutes or leverage to compel another person to surrender to the Police,” the statement read.
The group linked the boys’ detention to an earlier incident on 22 September 2026, when officers reportedly stormed Odoh’s residence in his absence and arrested his wife, Ogechi Juliet Chika. She was released only after the intervention of the Lagos State Commissioner of Police. Odoh alleges that his wife, who was pregnant at the time, suffered a miscarriage the following day, which he attributes to the trauma of the arrest.
RULAAC said these episodes form part of a broader pattern of police actions targeting Odoh, his workers, family and business, spanning Zone 2 Command, the FCID Annex at Alagbon, and units under the Lagos State Police Command.
Odoh has accused Uche Ozoigwe, described as a security manager associated with ATC Telecommunications, of threatening in the past to see him imprisoned and forced out of the battery business. RULAAC noted that this allegation remains subject to investigation and has not been independently verified.
The rights group questioned the pattern of repeated police actions against Odoh. “Are these genuinely separate criminal complaints supported by independent evidence, or substantially related allegations producing repeated arrests, searches and seizures that are progressively disrupting Chika’s family and business?” it asked.
RULAAC is urging the IGP to consolidate all case files connected to Odoh from Zone 2 Command, FCID Annex Alagbon, the Lagos State Police Command/Area F, and any other involved formation, placing them under one independent investigative team at Force Headquarters.
The organisation stressed it was not seeking to shield Odoh from legitimate scrutiny. “If telecommunications equipment found in his possession was stolen, investigators should identify the items by serial numbers, match them against company asset registers and trace them to specific reported incidents,” it said, adding that Odoh should equally be required to produce evidence of the lawful acquisition of the goods in his possession. “Evidence should settle the matter, not an endless succession of arrests.”
RULAAC said its immediate concern remains the welfare of the two minors. “The immediate priority, however, is the welfare and liberty of Chinedu Eyah, 16, and Kosisochukwu Onojo, 15,” the statement said, calling on the IGP to “urgently ascertain their whereabouts and legal status and secure their release unless there is a lawful and individual evidential basis for proceeding against either child.”
