The Dutch authorities have arrested Nigerian activist Sunny Ofehe on suspicion of people smuggling and forgery. Ofehe claims he is innocent.

The Public Prosecutor's Office says the suspicions against Mr Ofehe first arose when he was at Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport to pick up a man and a woman arriving on a flight from Nigeria. The man was detained by immigration officials because the woman was travelling on a passport in another person’s name.

The woman later told the police that she had been threathened by a so-called "madam" from Italy using voodoo practices to coerce her into working as a prostitute. Later she filed a complaint for human trafficking. Presumably, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office,  human traffickers had intended to force her into prostitution in Italy.

Innocent
Ofehe claims he is innocent, his lawyer Valérie Vallenduuk-Bobeck writes in a press release. Since his arrest on February 22,  he is in detention and is subject to legal restrictions. Those restrictions  forbid both him and his lawyer from making statements related to the substance of his case.

Ofehe claims thinks that his arrest is related to the Niger Delta and the role he played in the recent parliamentary hearing on Shell Petroleum's role in Nigeria's oil rich region. During the hearing he held Shell largely responsible for widespread environmental degradation in his country of origin.

Convenient
Ofehe is now preparing for new hearings at the European Union level on April 20 in Brussels. He thinks that his arrest “is really convenient for certain parties”, his lawyer writes.

He is also accused of submitting a false pay slip to allow a Nigerian asylum seeker to rent an apartment in Rotterdam. The man had travelled to the Netherlands last year after living illegally in the United Kingdom for six years.

Niger Delta activist
Sunny Ofehe is the chairman and founder of the Hope for Niger-Delta Campaign, or HNDC. The organisation seeks to protect the interests of the people of the Niger Delta, where the Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell is exploiting a number of oil concessions. The oil companies in the region are accused of causing widespread environmental damage.

Ofehe first came to the Netherlands 16 years ago as an asylum seeker and has since acquired Dutch nationality. In late January, Mr Ofehe testified at a parliamentary hearing about the role of Shell in the Niger Delta. In December he accompanied Socialist Party MP Sharon Gesthuizen on a fact-finding mission to the region.

Ofehe says he believes in the Dutch legal system and hopes that justice will prevail.
 

RNW