An Anambra woman Mrs Chidimma Edozieuno, has appeared before the Anambra Judicial Panel of Inquiry on police brutality. The helpless woman revealed how men of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad took away her husband in 2017 and told her to kiss him goodbye.
Edozieuno, who petitioned the panel and appeared for testimony, said her husband, who lived in Benin Republic, visited Nigeria after she gave birth to a baby and was arrested in the early hours of August 1, 2017 by policemen on mufti at their Ichida Street residence in Awka.
She alleged that her property was taken away to an unknown destination by the operatives, whose operational base was not disclosed to her.
The woman said the operatives alleged that her husband was a kidnapper and she would not see him again.
She said, “We were in our house in Awka that fateful day in August 2017 when some gunmen broke into our house and took my husband. They also took away almost all our household properties and told me to go and marry another man that this one is as good as dead.
“They said my husband was a kidnapper. I did not even know where they came from, and at first, I didn’t even know they were policemen.
“With the help of a friend, who is a police officer, we started looking for my husband. He took me around many police stations to know if they had him, but none of them had him. We went to Awkuzu SARS office where I saw three of the men who came and arrested my husband.
“I took a lawyer and we went to court. It was in court that the counsel representing the SARS told us that my husband was dead. They said he was a kidnapper. I dated my husband for a long time before we got married. He is not a kidnapper. I lived in Benin and that was where we knew each other. I later relocated to Nigeria. My husband is from Aguleri.”
She said that items collected from her home included a refrigerator, television, a generator set, laptop, iPhone and Wifi.
She also asked that the body of her husband be given to her for burial and compensation for the household items taken from her home.
Chairman of the panel, Justice V.N. Umeh (rtd), however, assured Edozieuno that the panel would investigate and make recommendations on her matter.
#EndSARS: How Police Bullet Crippled Me, Victim Of Police Brutality Opens Up To Ogun State Judicial Panel
A victim of police brutality, Ganiu Kamol, on Thursday told the Ogun State Judicial Panel of Investigation how “unknown” police officers shot him in the leg and crippled him.
Ganiu who gave evidence before the panel sitting at the Magistrate Court 1, Isabo, Abeokuta, the state capital, said he was shot in the leg by an unknown police officer attached to the Ibara Divisional Police headquarters of the Ogun State Police Command on July 17, 2018. Ganiu gave evidence at the maiden sitting of the panel set up by the state government to investigate complaints of victims of police brutality, human rights violations and extrajudicial killings by security operatives within the state.
The petitioner said after he was shot, his mother and brother were detained by the then Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of Ibara division, CSP Bolaji Oluwasegun.
He alleged that the DPO refused to produce the officer that fired the shot and equally prevented the hospital from treating him. Narrating his ordeal with the police, Ganiu said he was hit by the police bullet while he was driving at 3 am around Ibara area of the state capital.
According to him, the bullet hit him on his right leg and came out to brace the second leg
Ganiu said, “When I was hit by the bullet, I managed to drive to the hospital for treating where my mother and my brother were told that they would not treat me without a police report”.
