Panellist, police counsel bicker over petitioner’s medical report

Temper rose on Tuesday as the counsel to the Nigerian Police, C. S. O. Nwandi and a member of the panel, Dr Usiosefe Anthony Ereyimwan, exchanged words over the authenticity or otherwise of a medical report presented by a petitioner, Mr Emmanuel Abebe, before the Edo State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for victims of SARS and related abuses.

Abebe, 41, was said to have been shot on the leg in 2011 by men the disbanded SARS who invaded his compound at No 33, Burmaster Street, off Akenzua Street, Benin.

The rancorous argument occurred when the police counsel tried to question the personality and the authority of the person whose signature appeared on the medical report presented by Mr Abebe.

In response, Ereyimwan said the police counsel had no moral right to doubt the signatory of the medical report who is a prominent medical doctor in the state.

It, however, took the intervention of the chairman of the panel, Justice Ada Ehigiamusoe, to calm the frayed nerves, as she adjourned the case to another day.

Meanwhile, the chairman has ordered that the Chief Superintendent of Police, Tope and Chief Superintendent of Police, Balogun, both of Ogida Division, Benin City, to appear before it on December 17, 2020, to explain their roles in the alleged assault and extortion of one Mrs Patience Okundaye, aged, 61.

Mrs Okundaye had earlier told the panel that some group of persons foiled an attempted attack on her son and that one of the hoodlums was apprehended and handed over to the police, but due to the negligence of the police, the suspect escaped with handcuffs while still in custody.

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Okundaye who brought a plasma TV set to the panel to play the recorded video of how the disbanded SARS raided her house and assaulted her said they constantly turned her into an Automated Teller Machine, ATM, instead of arresting the culprit.

“They dragged me to the police station with only wrappers and singlets on my body, loaded my vehicle with the drinks we were to use on Sunday, and went away with them, while my son spent N600,000 to bail all those who were arrested in my compound.

She pleaded with the panel to invite the said police officers and recommend adequate sanction for them.

“What I want from this panel is that the policemen who were involved in this act should be summoned to appear before this panel and they should be prosecuted,” she said.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Panellist, police counsel bicker over petitioner’s medical report