By Okhide Em’ya David.
Edo State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for victims of Police brutality, otherwise known as SARS saga and related abuses, on Tuesday ordered that the Chief Superintendent of Police, CSP, Tope and Chief Superintendent of Police, Balogun, both of Ogida Division, Benin City, to appear before it.
The top Police officers are to appear before the Panel on December 17, 2020 to explain their roles in the alleged assault and extortion of a sixty one year old woman Mrs. Patience Okundaye.
Mrs. Okundaye informed the panel that some group of persons foiled an attempted attack on her son and that one of the hoodlums was apprehended and handed over to the police but due to their negligence, the suspect escaped with handcuffs while still in their custody.
Mrs Okundaye said on January 5, 2019, “some suspected hoodlums wanted to attack my son but with the help of youths in the area, they were able to apprehend one and took him to the police station but for sometime, the police complained that the boy they have arrested and brought before them have an injury.
“So, the police took the boy to the police health centre with handcuffs on his hands but less than fourty five minutes, the Police alerted my son that the the Suspect on handcuffs has escaped.
“Then the police called us to the station and getting there, we found out that the boy has actually escaped.
“So, I wrote to the DPO that being that the suspect has escaped, that our lives are no longer safe.
“From there, we went to the State Headquarters and when I narrated my story, the Commissioner of Police then ordered that the Anti-cult unit of the command to come and watch over my house until the police are able to fish out the criminal.
She said the Police only came to watch over their house on February 5, adding on the 6th of March, her daughter, who celebrated her marriage on 1st and 2nd of March, as well as on the sixth which attracted many visitors including youths.
Mrs. Okundaye said in the afternoon, some policemen burst into her house, broke the gate, ransacked the house, turning it upside down, and they arrested all the boys present.
“The Police said my children are criminals and I denied that they were not” Okundaye who brought a plasma TV set to the panel to play the recorded video of how the disbanded SARS raided her house and assaulted her, said they constantly turned her into an Automated Teller Machine (“ATM”).
“They dragged me to the police station with only wrappers and singlets on my body, loaded my vehicle with the drinks we were to use on Sunday, and went away with them. To cut the story short, my son spent N600,000 to bail all those who were arrested in my compound.
“He also paid N200,000 to bail me and my last born. Others spent close to a week in the cell before they were bailed.”
She pleaded with the panel to invite the said police officers and sanction them if found culpable .
Her words: “What I want from this panel is that the policemen who were involved in this act should be summoned to appear before this panel and they should be prosecuted”
The chairman of the panel, Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe however ordered that the said officers appear before the panel on 17th of December, 2020.
“Certain police officers were referred in the body of the petition. The Police Officers are one DPO, Ogida barracks division by name, CSP Tope and OC Anti-Kidnapping and Cultism, CSP Balogun.
These officers are ordered to appear before this panel on the 17 December, 2020,” Ehigiamusoe said.
In the same vein, a heated argument ensued between the Counsel to the Nigerian Police, C. S. O. Nwandi Esq and a member of the panel over the authenticity of a medical report presented by a petitioner, Mr. Abebe Emmanuel before the panel.
Abebe, 41, was shot on his leg in 2011 by the disbanded SARS who invaded his compound.
The argument which almost turned violent happened when the police counsel tried to question the personality and the authority of whose signature appeared on the medical report presented by Mr. Abebe.
In retaliation, Dr. Usiosefe Anthony Ereyimwan, member of the panel, said the police counsel has moral rectitude to do that because the name of the hospital and the medical doctor who signed the document is a man of high reputation.
It however took the intervention of the panel to calm the frayed nerves by subsequently adjourning for a further day.
