<h4>Lady Activist Returns</h4>
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<p><a href="https://openlife.ng/"><strong>OpenLife Nigeria</strong></a> reports that a lady activist, Ogadinma Winnie Miller, has returned a N2.5 million alleged bribe money to Honourable Eugene Cheta Epelle, chairman of Ahoada West Local Government Area of Rivers State.</p>
<p>According to the story, Honourable Eugene Epelle transferred the money to her as a way of silencing her voice over the dilapidated state of infrastructure in schools in the Ahoada West community.</p>
<p>Trouble started on February 26, when Ogadinma Winnie Miller visited the Odiokwu Community Secondary School in Ahoada West Local Government Area, Rivers State.</p>
<p>Her mission, according to the story, was to motivate the students and to encourage them to take their education seriously. She spoke to them about their career paths and told them that agriculture and farming is not a sign of poverty.</p>
<p>The students were motivated and made promises that they would take their studies seriously. But there was a caveat. They wept about the condition of their school. They took Miller round the school and begged her to use her platform to draw the attention of the government to their problem.</p>
<p>Miller was appalled by the sorry state of the school. The public school was dilapidated and the poor pupils were learning under dirty, unkempt and polluted environment.</p>
<p>Miller, who also hails from the community, saw that parts of the school walls had caved in. The roofs were perforated and the pupils could not tell the difference between a house and the open sky when it rained.</p>
<p>The entire floor was damaged, creating chains of gallops and making it difficult for the pupils to freely move around the area. The ceilings were damaged beyond repairs.</p>
<p>In fact, the pupils and the teachers could not boast of any decent facility at the school. The entire school had no toilets, worsening the situation of the pupils and the teachers.<br />
Passionate to make a difference, Miller called out the Chairman of Ahoada West Local Government Area, Eugene Chita Epelle.</p>
<p>Incidentally, the chairman hails from the community too.<br />
Miller drew the attention of the chairman to the plight of the students. She simply wanted the chairman to make palliative interventions necessary to give the pupils a sense of belonging. In fact, she wanted a conducive learning environment; perhaps a reconstruction of the facility.</p>
<p>While making the video, she said: “As we all know, the future of this country is in the hands of these kids. If they don’t have a solid background in education, then our future will be faulted. We are calling on the chairman, Hon. Eugene Epelle, to come to the rescue of these children.</p>
<p>“They need school chairs; they need boards, windows and general renovation. The school is no longer conducive. They don’t even have teachers. Before now they had over 1000 students, but right now, you can’t even boast of 100. Some of the pupils decided to speak about their plight.”</p>
<p>The principal of the school, who identified herself as Monica, said although she was newly deployed to the school, she discovered that the environment was not conducive for learning.<br />
Monica said: “The teachers are not many. We are begging the government to help us send serving youth corps members to the school.</p>
<p>“We need windows. There are no doors. As soon as the rain falls, the students run to cluster in one place.<br />
“We need tables. We need chairs and there is no toilet in the school, both for teachers and students. Some teachers leave the school environment to go ease themselves and they don’t come back again. The school needs general renovation. We are begging the chairman to help us.”</p>
<p>Some of the pupils spoke about their problems. One of them said: “Here in this school, we have some problems we are facing. The roof, when rain falls, we catch cold. There are no boards; no security.<br />
“The principal’s office is dirty, no doors;.no windows; nothing is safe in that office. The rain falls and wets our books. We are begging the chairman to come to our rescue.”</p>
<p>Miller made it a campaign. She followed up with the requests and kept making appeals for the school on her Facebook page. In one of the posts, she wrote: “Sir, you are not just the Chairman, you are a proud son of Odiokwu.</p>
<p>“This school is the only secondary school serving our community and neighboring villages. Our children are learning in conditions that do not reflect the value we place on education.<br />
“Everyone keeps saying our community has what it takes to fix this school. If that is true, then this is the moment to prove it. This is the time to lead from the front.</p>
<p>“Mr. FIX, your people need you now more than ever. Let this be remembered as the moment you stood up for Odiokwu and secured a better future for our children.<br />
“We are not asking for politics. We are asking for intervention. We are asking for hope.”</p>
<p>However, instead of the appeals to evoke the sympathy required of a public office holder, whose power and pleasure are sustained by the common wealth of the people, they provoked the chairman.</p>
<p>“Epelle was said to be wrathful, and in his indignation, visited the family house of Miller. While everyone expected the chairman to visit the school, take a tour round the facility and deliver hope to the pupils and teachers on how he intends to fix some of the problems even if not all, he chose to lead some of his boys to Miller’s house.</p>
<p>The Chairman and his boys went to warn Miller’s mother to keep her daughter in check. While he was delivering the warning, the boys sighted Miller and gave her the beaten of her life under the Chairman’s supervision.</p>
<p>They gave her a bloody nose and broke her lips. The chairman claimed that Miller deliberately undertook the mission to embarrass him and his office.</p>
<p>Miller said: “The chairman came to my house in the afternoon. He met my mother and I, and told my mother that I wanted to damage his image online. He vowed that he would not take it lightly. He said he was going to teach me a lesson and nobody would rescue me from his hands.</p>
<p>“While my mother was begging him, his brother pushed my mother and she started bleeding on her lips. The brother beat me so much that my mother started crying and calling for help.</p>
<p>“The community people came out and started shouting at the chairman. He entered his vehicle and left.”<br />
Miller said the attack had put fear in her life because, according to her, “the chairman boasted that nobody would hold him accountable if anything happened to me.<br />
“I am scared and I am calling out for help. Our lives are at risk. I need justice so that it will prevent further threats to others like me.”</p>
<p>The mother, Chimela Miller, also narrated the incident, saying that they held her daughter by the neck and raised her up. “The chairman told his brother to kill my daughter because he said he had the power and nobody would come,” she added.</p>
<p>But the chairman through his Chief Press Secretary, <a href="https://thenationonlineng.net/">Dennis Ezeuwa Lot,</a> attempted to defend himself in a statement. He denied the alleged assault, describing it as false, malicious and deliberately distorted to incite public anger and damage his reputation.</p>
<p>The statement said: “For the sake of clarity, the Chairman did not at any time lead anyone, whether brothers, associates or security personnel to assault, bully or intimidate the said accuser. What transpired is being grossly misrepresented.</p>
<p>“Today, 1st March 2026, the Chairman visited the residence of the accuser’s mother,.which today isn’t the first time he has visited her,.strictly for a peaceful and mature engagement.<br />
“During discussion, the young lady reportedly approached the chairman unprovoked, hurled insults at him, and used unprintable names.</p>
<p>“Despite this provocation, the chairman maintained composure and continued his discussion calmly with her mother without responding to the insults.<br />
“Moments later, the accuser again moved aggressively toward the chairman while continuing her verbal attack. A passerby intervened in an attempt to prevent escalation.</p>
<p>“In the process of being restrained, she reportedly lost balance, fell, and sustained minor injury.<br />
“At no point did the chairman engage in any physical confrontation. He neither touched nor instructed anyone to touch her.</p>
<p>“We challenge the accuser and those amplifying this narrative to present credible evidence—video footage, photographs, or any verifiable material showing the chairman leading or participating in any assault as alleged.</p>
<p>“In this era of mobile devices and constant recording, such serious claims should be backed by clear proof.<br />
“It is also noteworthy that this is not the first time the said accuser has publicly attempted to malign or embarrass the Chairman within the community. Nevertheless, Hon. Eugene Chita Epelle has continued to exercise restraint and maturity in handling repeated provocations.”</p>
<p>But the statement did not absolve the chairman of any blame. Some persons described the statement as ridiculous, especially as he already admitted that he visited the young Miller. The aspect where the statement claimed that Miller while advancing towards the chairman, lost her balance, fell and sustained a minor injury has been described by many people as ridiculous.</p>
<p>Later, Epelle explained the incident. He denied going to Miller’s house but clarify that they were only driving by when he saw Miller’s mother in front of their gate. He said the mother waved at him and he stopped because they had lived like a family from childhood.</p>
<p>He said: “She waved at me and I stopped because we know each other from childhood. We are like a family. We are close friends. We talk and I eat from there. When it is time for corn, she cooks for me and I eat. When I stopped she told me she had an accident and I said she should have called me for assistance”.</p>
<p>Epelle said after Miller’s mother invited her to enter her compound but that he declined because he was rushing to his house to hold an important meeting. He said he now remembered the post by Miller and asked her mother to appeal to the young girl to pull the post down.</p>
<p>“I wanted her to bring down the post because Miller is my aide. I am paying her and she is still on the payroll. Allowing such post will be misinterpreted to mean that I am using my aide to fight the state government. I am not against her post, but the way she did it especially because she is my employee and she ought to take order from me before posting anything. But she did not, he said.</p>
<p>Epelle said he was about leaving when Miller came out of the compound and started raining abuses on her. He said: ” When Miller came out she said, ‘step down which post, did you give me money to buy phone that you will now order me to step down the post&#8217;”.</p>
<p>Epelle said the mother was not happy at the way she responded to him and decided to push her inside the house. He said the mother begged him to forgive the daughter, but that in that process, the daughter came out again and started insulting him the second time.<br />
I became surprised at the way she was shouting.</p>
<p>The mother pushed her inside and started begging me to forgive her. But she came out again insulting me. It was then my younger brother her her whether she realized she was talking to the local government chairman. But she said, ‘which dirty executive chairman is that&#8217;”.</p>
<p>Epelle said the statement angered his younger brother. “It was at this point that my brother went to push her because she was standing close and pointing her fingers at my face. I didn’t support my brother pushing her. I even cautioned him not to try that next time.</p>
<p>It was in the process her teeth but her lips. That is the blood you see in the blood you see in the video. Nobody beat her. If you see my younger brother in question and she blow Miller, she would not survive it.”</p>
<p>Indeed, the Chairman, Epelle, seems to have beaten more than he could chew. His actions have drawn outrage from various stakeholders across the country with most of them calling for his resignation while others are asking him to tender an unreserved apology to Miller and her family.</p>
<p>Still, some stakeholders asked the police to arrest and prosecute the chairman for assault. Everybody is on the case of the chairman.</p>
<p>He called on security agencies to intervene and ensure that justice was served.<br />
Another activist popularly called Certified Courtist, demanded justice for Miller, lambasting the chairman for what he described as intimidation and harassment.<br />
He said: “It is even a shame that the school in your community is dilapidated. You should hide your face in shame.</p>
<p>“It is further shameful that you had to go with thugs to attack a defenceless girl just to silence her.<br />
“This makes you a woman ‘beater’, and people like you should have no business with leadership in our state.<br />
“The Commissioner of Police must as a matter of urgency arrest and prosecute Eugene Chita Epelle, the Chairman of Ahoada West LGA for assault occasioning harm.</p>
<p>“People who go about beating women should have no place in our society.<br />
“We shall see to the end of this matter. There is no going back on this.<br />
“We cannot continue to have a woman beater and an incompetent person lead us in any capacity.”</p>
<p>A coalition of the Civil Society Organisation (CSO) under the auspices of the Human Rights Clinic condemned the assault and wrote to the commissioner of police, urging him to investigate, arrest and prosecute Epelle and his brother Monday.</p>
<p>A popular online activist, Vincent Otse, famously known as VeryDarkMan (VDM) waded into the matter and gave Epelle two weeks to fix the school. He said if the chairman failed to renovate the school, he would empower Miller through his NGO to rehabilitate the school.</p>
<p>As the information escalated, a Grammy Award winner who incidentally hails from the Ahoada community, Damini Ebunoluwa Ogulu, known professionally as Burna Boy, intervened.</p>
<p>He specifically instructed VDM to under take a study of the dilapidated school including the cost estimates so that he can fund the repair or reconstruction of the school.</p>
<p>This intervention from the global music icon further sank the integrity of Honourable Eugene Cheta Epelle into infamy.</p>
<p>To rescue himself, he was said to have sent N2.5 million to the lady activist. Promptly, the Winnie Miller said that based on integrity, she has refunded the money to the council chairman.</p>
<p>He statement below:</p>
<p><em><strong>Transparency is very important to me, so I want everyone to know that I have successfully refunded the â¦2.5 million that was sent to me by the Chairman of Ahoada West Hon Eugene Cheta Epelle.</strong></em></p>
<p><strong><em>From the beginning, I made it clear that I cannot be bribed or silenced. My stand has always been for truth, accountability, and doing what is right for our community.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Today, that money has been returned in full because I will never compromise my integrity for any amount of money.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>Let it be known that this matter is not about personal gain. It is about justice, transparency, and ensuring that the right thing is done.</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>I will continue to stand for the truth no matter the pressure.</em></strong><br />
<strong><em>Justice will be served!!</em></strong><br />
<strong><em>@highlight</em></strong></p>
<p><strong><em>âð» Winnie Miller</em></strong></p>
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