Exposed a police operation allegedly involving extrajudicial killings and organ harvesting, remains in jail facing threats to his life despite being granted bail

Nnamdi Emeh was jailed on what have widely been described as trumped-up charges after he exposed a police operation allegedly involving extrajudicial killings and extortion.

After completing a BSc in Business Administration, for his mandatory year of national youth service, the 26-year-old joined the Anambra State Rapid Response Squad as an IT consultant, specialising in tracking high-profile criminals.

According to Red Notice Monitor, which provides information about Interpol arrest warrants, Emeh anonymously leaked information about alleged corruption, abductions, extrajudicial killings and organ harvesting by Nigerian police officials that led to criminal investigations.

After Emeh’s identity was outed on social media he fled to neighbouring Benin, where he was arrested in March 2023 on an Interpol Red Notice and returned to Nigeria. Among the charges he faces are unlawful possession of firearms, money laundering, fraud and hacking. Red Notice Monitor said these charges were “all consistent with the types of false charges deployed by despotic regimes in politically motivated Red Notices against dissidents”.

He remains incarcerated in Awka Correctional Centre, Anambra State, Nigeria, despite being granted bail.

According to his father, Professor John Emeh, Nnamdi’s life is in danger from an assassination threat after a weapon was smuggled into the prison where he is being detained. Professor Emeh says the weapon was smuggled into the prison with instructions to provoke a fight and assassinate Nnamdi during the altercation.

This is the second time a plot has been hatched to assassinate him, according to his lawyer and his family.  They say shortly after he was arrested, certain police officers planned to murder him during a transfer to a different prison on the pretext that he was shot while trying to escape. A public outcry ensued when the alleged plot was publicised, and he was eventually charged and produced in court in May 2023.

Emeh was granted bail but his family told reporters attempts to release him were blocked by the police. Another order for his release was signed by a judge in May 2024, but it was reportedly opposed by the police and he remains behind bars.

Meanwhile the Inspector General of Police set up a panel in 2023 to investigate Emeh’s allegations against senior officers, but it has never publicly released its findings.

Okechukwu Nwanguma, director of Nigerian civil rights group Rule of Law and Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), reportedly said it was suspicious that the findings remained secret while “the same officers he accused have neither been suspended nor charged. Instead, the whistleblower is the one paying the price”.

He accused the Nigerian police of operating “as a state within a state”, and that a “culture of extrajudicial executions, organ harvesting, illegal detention and extortion” was “enabled by silence from above”.

“But we will not be silent,” he vowed, calling on Nigeria’s National Judicial Council, the media, the legislature and local civil society groups and their international partner to demand accountability.

Emeh’s case has been adjourned several times in the past two years in what Emeh’s family describes as a deliberate ploy by the state to keep him behind bars indefinitely.

“The police, in an arrogant display of impunity promoted the police officers indicted in this case while locking up Nnamdi to rot in jail,” says his father, John Emeh. “My son is a whistleblower who was arrested on trumped up charges. My defence attorney believes the state has no case at all.”

“Nnamdi Daniel Emeh was an inexperienced 25-year-old, vulnerable NYSC (National Youth Service Corps) member serving his fatherland with the police. He has not committed any crime that deserves perpetual incarceration,” he said.

“In fact, Nnamdi's life is in grave danger as the police and their cohorts deliberately detain him in cells with criminals he helped the police to apprehend. The police should set Nnamdi free after nearly three years in prison. We appeal to friends, all well-meaning and patriotic Nigerians and in fact the international community to rally to save our only child from irreparable damage to his young life,” said Professor Emeh.

He has made an impassioned plea to the international community to “kindly intervene to save our only child’s life”.

Earlier this year Nwanguma, the director of RULAAC, repeated his calls for police to release the results of their investigation into Emeh’s allegations.

“The same police continue to defend the accused officers while keeping the whistleblower in perpetual detention under questionable circumstances,” he said, calling Emeh’s case “a litmus test for Nigeria’s commitment to transparency, whistleblower protection, and the rule of law”.

He said Emeh’s “continued incarceration – despite court orders and public outrage – sends a chilling message to others who may dare to speak out against police corruption and abuse. It reinforces a culture where truth-tellers are criminalized and perpetrators are glorified.”

Nnamdi Emeh is being jointly supported by Blueprint for Free Speech and The Platform to Protect Whistleblowers in Africa (PPLAAF)