…as ailing Anthony Jack spends eleven days in custody without trial over billions of Naira land deal
By Ime Silas
Daughter of 70 years old Anthony Jack has cried out, accusing Rev Silvia Imoh of the Humility Glory Mission of wanting her father dead in police custody. The obviously distressed Miss Comfort Jack, second daughter to the incarcerated septuagenarian was speaking to newsmen at the State Headquarters of the Nigeria Police Force, Ikot Akpanabia yesterday shortly after visiting her father at the detention facility.
Lamenting Chief Jack’s ordeal, Comfort, who could not hold her tears said her father’s health was deteriorating after spending eleven (11) days in the police custody without trial. She stressed that her father whom she hinted had been on routine medication for an undisclosed ailment was a total opposite of himself prior to his upper week Thursday.
“I wonder how a woman could be so heartless, seeing a man of my father’s age with his health condition, detained in such a place simply because my father asked for his due after suffering to work for her”, Comfort bemoaned.
Chief Anthony Jack who is the Village Council Secretary of Ekpene Ikpan in Nsit Ibom local government area of Akwa Ibom State, was apprehended by a team of policemen from the Etinan Division of the force on May 15, 2025 shortly after stepping out from the Etinan High Court.
He was thereafter transferred to the ‘QIU’, State Headquarters with one officer Ekpo as the IPO.
Speaking on why his father was arrested, Comfort narrated that her father was contacted by the complainant, Rev Silvia Imoh sometimes in 2019 to help her as property agent in buying plots of land in Ekpene Ikpan and Ikot Oku, both in Nsit Ibom LGA.
“According to what my father told us, she (Rev Silvia) had agreed to pay him certain commission as agent. My father started working on the project since then till around 2024. Most times, our father, in spite of her age, would leave the house very early in the morning and would not return home till late in the night.
“Most times, he would be joining grader operators to work on clearing the massive land and would return home totally worn out. But, when it was time to pay him the agreed commission, the woman refused. My father went to court for redress and while he came out from the court, he was arrested”.
When asked of the offence for which the police said the father committed, Comfort continued: “When we went there last week Monday, the IPO told us at the presence of our GO (General Overseer) that my father was arrested because he signed as guarantor for one of the persons who worked and stole from the site.
Since then, they have not mentioned the person’s name, yet, they have refused to release my father or charge him to court as allowed by law. Maybe she wants my father to die in police custody so that he would not ask for the money again. We don’t understand”.
Investigation reveals that Rev. Silvia Imoh, elder sister to the immediate-past governor of Akwa Ibom State, Deacon Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, actually contacted the incarcerated Anthony Jack and one Idara Udofa to act as agents in land purchase deal running into billions of Naira. The said property is a massive expanse of land covering two villages, Ekpene Ikpan and Ikot Oku Nsit.
According to court documents sighted by this writer and other facts gathered, the claimants (Anthony Jack and Idara Udofa) were earlier reluctant when the defendant (Rev (Dr.) Silvia Imoh) contacted them for the transaction until they were told that it was Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel (as he then was) that was buying the land.
“Having seen land owners who were willing to sell out their land(s) the 1st Defendant then equally, in an open secret, disclosed to the Claimants that Mr. Udom Gabriel Emmanuel was the one buying all these land(s), but using the church, Humility Glory Mission, as the buyer of these lands”, part of the averments filed by the claimants noted.
The Claimants therefore accused the defendant of defaming them instead of paying them the agreed commission, even when she (Rev Silvia) had deducted from source, ten percent (10%) from each seller while also keeping another ten percent acruable from the buyer.
But in a counterclaim, a copy of which was also obtained by this writer, the defendant, Rev Silvia Imoh, while admitting to have engaged the claimants for the transaction as claimed, accused them of defrauding her “Church” to the tune of N129, 578, 202.40 (One hundred and twenty-nine million, five hundred and seventy-eight thousand, two hundred and two Naira, forty Kobo) in the course of the deal.
Although her counterclaim did not include the total area (size) of the land bought, the commission payable to the agents, as well as its total value of the transaction, the former governor’s sister noted in her counterclaim:
“That there is a differential of 116,011.718 Square Metres between the total number of land or land valued at =N129,578,202.40 which appear not to exist;”
When contacted on the matter, the Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, Akwa Ibom State Command, DSP Timfon John promised to revert, but could not as at press time.
More details later
