I was never arrested by the police — Okorocha

The former Imo State Governor, Senator Rochas Okorocha, has denied reports that he was arrested by the police on October 12, 2026, accusing agents of the state government of spreading false information about the incident.

In a statement issued in Owerri by his Chief Press Secretary and Media Adviser, Sam Onwuemeodo, Okorocha described a video circulating over the alleged arrest as doctored and misleading.

“Let us repeat for the umpteenth time that, His Excellency, Owelle Rochas Okorocha, was never arrested on October 12, 2026, contrary to the lies of the agents of the lmo State Government,” he said.

Okorocha said his camp would have informed the public if he had been arrested, adding that they would not have remained silent over such an incident.

He accused agents of the Imo State Government of struggling for more than 48 hours to provide evidence to support their claim that he had been arrested.

According to him, they had failed to disclose where he was taken after the alleged arrest, whether to the Force Headquarters, the state police command or a divisional police headquarters.

He also questioned who signed his bail documents, who took his statement, and where the procedures took place, noting that government agents had claimed he was released on bail after one hour.

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The former governor said a video showing his arrest would have circulated online that night if the incident had occurred.

Okorocha also disputed claims that an arrest order dated September 9, 2026, had been vacated by the same Chief Magistrate Court on September 14, 2026. He said those making the claims had failed to produce a fresh order.

He attributed the difficulties encountered by some police personnel who arrived at a hotel where Professor Nnamdi Obiaraeri held his reception to the absence of a valid arrest warrant.

Okorocha said guests at the event challenged the officers to produce the warrant, but they were unable to do so.

“The people who were at the event came out in their large number and asked the police personnel to produce the warrant, they could not. Having no warrant, the senior lawyers there told them that they had come to take the law into their hand. When they discovered that some of the senior lawyers at the event had begun to make calls to ascertain the genuiness of what they had come to do, they left without anybody asking them to leave. That was what happened. I left the event and went straight to my house,” he said.

He accused agents of the state government of publicising the alleged arrest as soon as they learnt that police officers had arrived at the hotel, without waiting to establish what happened.

According to him, after the alleged arrest did not take place, the agents circulated the same court order he said had been vacated on Tuesday, October 13, 2026, in the hope that he would be arrested a day earlier.

He said: ” It was a well planned deal, but it crashed”.

On claims that the police had asked him to report on Tuesday, October 13, Okorocha asked what had happened on the stated date, insisting that he was neither arrested nor granted bail and had not been asked to report to the police.

He accused those behind the claims of turning to a video recorded by an Imo-born lawyer, Barrister Kingdom Okere, who attended the event, and altering it to support their account.

Okorocha alleged that the video had been extensively edited, with sections considered unfavorable to the agents’ claims removed, including a portion in which the lawyer allegedly made critical remarks about the Imo State governor.

The former governor said the manner in which government agents had addressed him, despite his having served two terms as governor and as a senator, raised questions about their conduct and that of the state government.

He added that they appeared to have abandoned caution and exhausted their claims against him.