A woman told the #EndSARS panel in Abuja how her 80-year-old father died in June 2018 from health problems related to the abuse he allegedly suffered during his wrongful arrest and detention in Lagos.
Ifeyinwa Remigus gave her emotional testimony to the panel investigating police brutality petitions via Zoom call on Wednesday.
She said that her father, Pius Ajaegbu, was wrongfully arrested in a night raid by police in Itere, Mushin area in Lagos state on February 28, 2018.
According to her, officers from the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), who allegedly carried out the mass arrest, claimed to be looking for suspects involved in the murder of a police officer.
“He said he went to buy roasted yams somewhere around Itere when a police truck pulled up and they asked him to get in,” Ms. Remigus said of the conversation she had with her father about his arrest.
He recalled his father recounting that the police physically assaulted him to break his resistance to arrest. Recalling his father’s account of the scene, he said the officers slapped him several times before hitting him in the groin with the butt of a gun.
“While trying to resist them, he was hit in the stomach, collapsed and was pushed into the truck,” he added.
Ms. Remigus told the panel how within days of his arrest, her father was transferred from the police headquarters in Lagos to the environmental task force facility in Bolade Oshodi and ended up in Badagry prison.
The woman could not stop crying as she described her father’s ordeal at the hands of officials at the various places of his detention.
She recalled how her father’s blow to the groin caused a urinary problem. Her health worsened during detention due to lack of care, but all efforts to secure her release on bail were rejected, she said.
Futile efforts to secure release
She described how her efforts to secure her father’s release at the Bolade Oshodi task force facility, where the man is said to have been taken just a day after his arrest by police, were met with a stone wall, with officials insisting that his father had murdered. a policeman.
He claimed that he told them that his father was an old man who could not have done such a thing.
“I went there and they didn’t let me in. I begged but it fell on deaf ears so I started crying and a police officer told me that my father killed a policeman,” said Ms Remigus.
When he was finally allowed in, he said, he saw his father on the ground but was not allowed to go near him. Rather, they ordered him to go find a lawyer because his father would be charged in mobile court, she said.
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“At the facility, a lawyer approached me and demanded N30,000 from me,” Ms. Remigus alleged.
He said he returned there the next day, but was told that his father had been taken to Badagry prison.
Poor health in prison
She painted a picture of her father’s horrible state of health and physical appearance in prison.
“I saw him there dirty and tired with a swollen face. He said that he had not been able to urinate since they brought him to the prison”, narrated Mrs. Remigus sobbing profusely.
He added that his father told him the urinary problem was due to police hitting him in the groin during his arrest. She said that she gave him water to drink, but it didn’t help.
The petitioner said that the mobile court also rejected his father’s request for bail. She said her further attempts to see her father detained were blocked twice.
Deterioration of health condition, death.
He informed the panel that he later received a call that his father was dying and that he had to go look for him.
The man, according to the petitioner, was taken to Badagry General Hospital, where a tube was placed in his bladder to allow him to urinate.
Ms Remigus said the man was transferred from that hospital to others for better care, but did not survive the ailment. He died on June 24, 2018, according to her.
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Ms. Remigus pleaded with the panel to help her and her siblings obtain justice. She asked for N50 million in compensation.
Cross-examination, adjournment
Responding to questions during cross-examination by a police lawyer, Kenneth Egbochua, Ms Remigus said her father was arrested in a police raid after a police officer was said to have been killed during a fight in Mushin.
She said her father had only been out to buy roasted yams for dinner when he was arrested and was not involved in the alleged murder.
The panel after hearing his testimony adjourned the case until March 22 for the defense.
remote hearing
The case that emerged Wednesday was one of the first where the #EndSARS panel in Abuja adopted remote hearing.
The panel on Tuesday began making an alternative provision for petitioners with long-distance travel challenges to appear before the panel in Abuja to take part in the proceedings via Zoom call.
Ms Remigus, who appeared with her attorney, gave her testimony remotely via Zoom call on Wednesday. She and her lawyer were hosted by the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) in Lagos and connected to the panel in Abuja.