Ekiti couple accuses NSCDC of maltreatment over N10,000 house rent

They only went there to ensure restoration of peace – NSCDC’s spokesman

By Wole Balogun, Ado-Ekiti

Pandemonium recently broke out in Hope community area of Ado-Ekiti, when some officials of the Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSDC) allegedly battered and bruised a couple, Mr. and Mrs. Osayomi Lawrence Gbenga over what the couple described as deliberate act to oppress and intimidate them for their failure to promptly pay an outstanding rent to their landlady.

In a petition to the Inspector General of Police, Commander General, NSCDC, National Humans Rights Commission, Abuja, Ekiti State Ministry of Justice and the media, Mr. Osayomi recounted his harrowing experience in the hands of members of the paramilitary outfit.

“Earlier on Wednesday, December 20,2016, I had a discussion with my landlady over my rent fee which expires only on January 14, 2017 and which I still had an outstanding of N10,000 to balance up.

“While I was appealing to the landlady to exercise patience, a woman just came in from outside and started shouting at me, threatening to use her husband who is an official of the NSCDC to drive me and my family out of the landlady’s house.

Three days later, Friday, December 23, 2016, I was away at work while my wife and our eight-month old baby were at home. One Mr. Bode identified as an official of the NSCDC came into our apartment and beat my wife and the baby up. My family was seriously injured in the process.

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“Mr. Bode vowed to return and unleash same terror on me and my family and on Wednesday, December 28, 2016, he returned with three other armed men of the NSCDC. And I was around that day. The NSCDC men descended on my wife and I and beat us mercilessly leading to severe injuries.

“When the men found out that I made efforts to call the police, they took my cell phone and my wife’s Nokia cell phone. I also lost a cash of N14,500 in the process

“The ugly incident was witnessed by neighbours and other residents in the area who invited the police to intervene. The people also gathered to rescue my family and I from the rampaging NSCDC officials.

“Eventually, the police came into the scene and that was when another drama began as the NSCDC men attacked them with several gunshots. It took the intervention of the divisional Police Officer of Ologede Police Station  of Ado-Ekiti who eventually disarmed the NSCDC men and restored normalcy.

“Sir, the conduct of the NSCDC men is an embarrassment to the laws of our land as unjust, undue and unfair treatment is meted out to law-abiding citizens like us.  I urge you to use your office to ensure that justice is served.”

But spokesman of the NSCDC, Ekiti State Command, Mr. Tolu Afolabi, said the officers only went to the place to ensure peace was restored between two fighting tenants.

“Some officers who went to the area to make an arrest got a distress call that someone was trying to attack one of our officer’s wife who had lived in the house before.

“This made them to go to the place. On getting there, the man (Mr. Osayomi) attacked our officers who came on a rescue mission. One of them named Tosin was wounded in the process and is presently being attended to at Cottage Hospital at Police station in Okesa division. The said man beat our officer till he fainted and bite him all over his body.”