Onyeka Onwenu Dragged To Court By A Businesswoman She Assaulted

A business woman, Mrs. Olajoke Adesipe,
has accused popular musician, Onyeka
Onwenu, of assault and she has thus
petitioned the National Human Rights
Commission, after she was forcefully
evicted from her shop at the National
Centre for Women Development, Abuja
on the order of Onyeka, who is the new
DG.
Mrs Adesipe, in the letter dated March 3,
2014, claimed that Onwenu directed
security officers to throw her wares out of
her shop, adding that she was assaulted
on the instruction of Madam Onwenu
when she took the pictures of the
incident.
The business woman, who sells textiles,
said she was a yearly tenant, adding that
her current tenancy would not end until
December, 2014. Mrs Adesipe petition
reads:
“On January 21, I heard that the DG might
likely eject me even when my rent is still
valid. On February 13, I got a call from
Onwenu asking why I had not moved out
of the shop and I told her that nobody
had given me an allocation letter for the
new shop as she promised.
“She said if I failed to move out by
February 14, she would send for State
Security Service to chase me out. On
February 14, I was at the centre early. I
heard that Onwenu, in company with her
security personnel, had forced my shop
open. I ran there and saw her supervising
the forceful ejection without any prior
court or police order,” Adesipe stated in
the petition.
According to Punch, she got a letter to
vacate the premises within three days on
January 28, 2014, adding that another
letter was served on her on February 4, in
which the centre threatened to go to
court.
She explained that she wrote a letter to
Onwenu on February 6, and sent her a
text message three days later seeking an
audience. She said the DG gave her an
appointment for the following day.
Mrs Adesipe said she had earlier met
other members of the management team
at Onwenu’s office and after she narrated
her story, Madam Onwenu, who is now
showing herself as big woman because of
an appointment, had apologised to her
and told her a formal apology letter
would be written by the centre to her.
She added that Onwenu said she should
vacate the shop and promised that she
would be relocated to the shopping
complex within the premises. Mrs Adesipe
said she would vacate as soon as a shop
she gets an allocation letter.
Back to her assault: She said that she
took pictures of the scene of the incident
with her phone but Onwenu immediately
directed that her phone be confiscated.
She said in the struggle for the phone,
she was beaten and dragged on the
ground, while her cloth and bags were
torn.