Lukman Olabiyi
The Lagos State Judicial Panel of Enquiry and Restitution for Victims of SARS related abuses and other matters yesterday heard the pathetic story of how the now dissolved police unit allegedly tortured a pregnant woman and her husband for 22 days, till she suffered miscarriage.
The petitoners, Ogechukwu Obiechina and his wife Ndubuisi on Saturday narrated their ordeal in the hands of SARS officials to the panel.
Mrs Ndubisi Obiechina said she suffered miscarriage twice due to police brutality.
In a emotional laden voice, Mrs. Ndubisi Obiechina who spoke for the couple told the panel that she was wrongly arrested on June 2, 2017, detained for 22 days and verbally abused and tortured.
The couple alleged that the operatives falsely labelled them thief and kidnapper.
According to Mrs Ndubuisi, said she was two months pregnant at the time, but that during beatings, the men threatened to “force the baby out of me”.
She said men of the Federal Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) also stole her husband’s N50,000 and compelled them to cough up N400,000 as bail, before they were freed.
She told the panel that the couple sued the Police at the Federal High Court in Lagos and won.
Justice Mohammed Idris ordered the Police to pay them N2 million as compensation.
They also won on appeal but the Police refused to comply.
Mrs Ndubuisi identified some of her torturers as “Phillip Rilwan, Christian and Haruna Idowu”.
Panel chair, Judge emeritus Doris Okuwobi, adjourned sitting to enable the mentioned operatives an opportunity to appear and respond to the allegations.
The Obiechinas’ testimony was the first of four petitions for the third day of sitting since the Lagos State Government set up the nine-member panel on October 15, following weeks of near nationwide #EndSARS protests.
Mrs Ndubuisi, a private school teacher said On June 1, she received a text message from an unknown number that she had a parcel from DHL. A caller using different numbers asked for her home or office address and she gave him her school address upon her husband’s advice.
It was the next day, June 2, 2017, that her ordeal began. She said the men arrived at her school in a black Sports Utility Vehicle (SUV).
Mrs Ndubuisi said: “I saw a black jeep with huge men inside it. One of them was in a DHL uniform…
“Immediately, they approached me, they started beating me. They said I should enter inside. They said I was a thief, an armed robber. The one in the DHL uniform removed it. My HM (Headmistress) was peeping at us. I said let me go and tell her. They said no.”
The petitioner said she had a five-year-old son at the school, but they didn’t care.
“I said my kid is there, they said no, that I should follow them, that my kid would die there. My HM came to the gate; they pointed a gun at me. She asked what was going on. They said ‘This woman is a thief, a kidnapper. She must follow us and go. They said they were Police, SARS.”
They pushed me inside the car and moved. The men were slapping, beating me. I wa two months pregnant. I started vomiting. That’s when they found out I was pregnant. But they kept torturing me. I told them I did not know the suspect.
“They took me to their office at Ikeja. They took me to a shrine. They hanged me, beat me. They said they would force my baby out of me. They said I must produce the person or die there,” Mrs Obiechina said.
The witness testified further that her husband had been searching for her at different Police stations in Lagos. When he eventually found her, he was also arrested and tortured.
Further hearing has been adjourned till 10 November, 2020.
