Members of the family of a man who was slain in Edo State, Mr. Ibrahim Momodu, have petitioned the chairman of the Edo State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on the #EndSARS protests, Retired Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe, over the gruesome murder of their son by policemen in 2013.
The family members of the deceased are demanding for an urgent invitation, investigation and prosecution of Mrs. Carol Afegbai, a Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) and others at large over alleged murder.
The Momodu family, in a petition through their lawyer, Jefferson Uwoghiren, dated October 27, 2020, a copy of which was made available to newsmen in Benin on Monday, urged the panel to invite the CSP and others now at large for alleged complicity and conspiracy to murder, obstruction of justice and conducts prejudicial to public peace.
Beyond that, they are also demanding for N50m compensation for loss of affection, emotional distress and grave injustice done to them by “agents of government, sworn to protect lives and properties.”
Jefferson Uwoghiren in the petition stated that the criminal complicity of the CSP, a senior police officer and former Divisional Police Officer (DPO), Ogida police Division, Siluko Road, Benin City, and others, “have caused our client untold emotional distress, loss of affection and grave injustice”.
According to the petition “on 27th May, 2013, at Obayuwana Junction along Siluko Road, Benin City, Mr. Amadin Idahosa, a Corporal with the Nigeria Police and orderly to then CSP Carol Afegbai and DPO, Ogida police Station at about 7pm, without provocation, legal justification, illegally and wrongly shot and killed Mr. Ibrahim Momodu. They, subsequently in attempts to cover up, buried the said Mr. Ibrahim Momodu in a shallow grave in a public cemetery in Benin City.”
Uwoghiren appealed to the panel chairman to “invite, demand, request and clarify from the Afegbai, immediate steps she took to arrest and abate the callous killing by her orderly right in her presence, as a senior law enforcement officer, paid with tax payers money to protect lives and properties.”
He also requested the panel to find out from the former DPO and others, “whose initiative it was to attempt to mislead Nigerians with the provision of a Q-Link Motorcycle,purporting it to belong to late Mr. Ibrahim Momodu and whose initiative it was to attempt to mislead Nigerians with the provision of a cut-to-size Russian made barrel gun and five live cartridges alleged to belong to late Momodu, when in fact from evidence it was a planted gun to destroy the image of Mr. Ibrahim Momodu.”
He also requested the panel to interrogate, “the location of phones and personal properties of Mr. Ibrahim Momodu carted away by the police, after the killings but ordered returned to our client by the court and who ordered the post-killng cover ups of complicity, murder of Mr. Ibrahim Momodu, as noted by the trial judge, in his Lordship’s judgement.”
Uwoghiren further demanded for a public apology from the Nigeria Police for defaming parents of the deceased as armed robbers and criminals as well as renaming of the Administrative block at Ogida police station after Mr. Ibrahim Momodu.
“We further demand the renaming of the adjoining road to Ogida police station as Ibrahim Momodu Street by the police authority.
I’m addition, “we demand for the arrest and prosecution of all police officers who were and present during the killing of Mr. Ibrahim Momodu, for complicity in his murder.”
According to the Uwoghiren, “on the 5th of June 2013, on the order of court, the body of Ibrahim Momodu was exhumed from a shallow grave at the Third Cemetery, New Benin, Benin City for autopsy. The result of the autopsy showed that late Momodu was shot in the chest, lacerating his heart and embarrassed by the circumstances of the killing, the police arrested Mr. Amadin Idahosa, subjected him to orderly room trial, dismissed him from the force and charged him to court for murder on charge No. B/CD/24C/2014.”
At the close of trial, Hon. Justice R. Irele-Ifijeh, in 2016 found Mr. Amadin Idahosa guilty of manslaughter in the unprovoked and illegal killing of Mr. Ibrahim Momodu and sentenced him to life imprisonment.
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