8th December, 2020
By Jethro Ibileke
A 61-year-old victim of police brutality, Mrs. Patience Okundaye, has narrated how two police officers turned her to automated teller machine, from where they illegally withdrew as much as N800, 000.
Mrs. Okundaye disclosed this Tuesday, while appearing before the Edo State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for victims of SARS and related abuses.
She told the panel that some youths 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 told the panel how on 5 January, 2019, some youths in the area repelled an attack on her son by some hoodlums and how one of the hoodlums was apprehended and handed over to the police.
According to the victim, the hoodlum later escaped with handcuffs on his hands while in the custody of the police, a development she said she promptly reported to the state commissioner of police.
“I wrote to the DPO that because the suspect has escaped, 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 the anti-cultism unity of the command to come and watch over my house until the police are able to fish out the criminal.
“They only came to watch over my house on the 5th of February. Then, in the afternoon of 6th of March, some policemen came to my house, turned my house upside-down and arrested all the boys that were present.
“The further said my children were criminals and I said my children were not criminals.
“They dragged me to the police station with only wrappers and a singlet on my body, loaded my vehicle with my drinks 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 narrated.
To buttress her claims, Mrs. Okundaye brought a plasma TV set to the panel to play the recorded video of how members of the disbanded SARS raided her house and assaulted her, adding that they constantly turned her into an Automated Teller Machine.
Following this revelation, the chairman of the panel, Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe (Rtd), ordered the said officers to appear before the panel on 17 December, 2020.
“Certain police officers were referred in the body of the petition. The police officers are: DPO, Ogida barracks division, by name, CSP Tope and there is also, the OC anti-kidnapping and cultism, CSP Balogun.
“These officers are ordered to appear before this panel on the 17 December, 2020,” Ehigiamusoe said.