From Ighomuaye Lucky, Benin
Smart Odojie Ofagba, 41, yesterday, told the Edo State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for victims of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and related abuses that a divisional police officer, Aisabor in Usenu Irrua in Esan Central Local Government Area of Edo State killed his father, a retired army officer, Mr. Samuel Udojie Ofagba, on March 9, 1999.
Smart also told the panel that his uncle, Mr. Abhulimen Ofagba, and his father’s labourer, Kingsley, were allegedly murdered alongside his father by the same police officer.
Smart, who was 20 years old when the incident happened, told the panel that Kingsley who works with his father in his farm was accosted by the police officer when he was coming from a night burial and was taken to his father, for identification.
Smart said when his father saw Kingsley, he identified him as one of his workers. The young man who later broke down in tears before the panel, appealed to the panel to unravel the circumstances surrounding the death of his relatives, and demanded N50million compensation.
He noted that to make the matter worse, their bodies were not released to the family for burial.
He prayed the panel to compel Mr. Aisabor to lead him to where his father was buried so that he could exhume the body and give him a befitting burial.
Chairman of the panel, Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe (retd), ordered: “This is the collective view of the panel that the said police officer named in the petition, one Mr. Aisabor be summoned before this panel to answer to issues as contained in the petition.”