A petitioner counsel before the independent investigative panel on rights violation by the defunct SARS and other police units set up by the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) on Wednesday informed that the mortuary bill of a man shot dead in Abuja by a policeman, Simon Aondofa Nyamkwange, had accumulated to N1.8million after 600 days in the morgue.
The counsel, Jeff Mbatsaddue, made this known before adopting his final written address in the petition filed before the 11-man panel by Abraham Nyamkwange, on behalf of his late brother, Simon Aondofa Nyamkwange, marked 2020/IIP-SARS/ABJ/142, alleging the extrajudicial killing of his brother.
The petitioner had joined the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) Wise Zone 3 Police Station, Mamman Joseph Barakwai; IPO Ibrahim; Officer Aunde Peter; Officer Mrs Aunde; Vershima Zaki; Commissioner of Police FCT and the Inspector General of Police as respondents.
According to him, following the order made by the panel for the release of the corpse of the deceased to the family for burial, they went to the Wise General Hospital, where they told that the mortuary bill was N1.8million at the rate of N2,000 per day for 600 days.
Mbatsaddue further informed that they met with the hospital’s Chief Medical Director and he initially reduced the bill to N607,000 and further reduced it to N407,000, adding that the police were not ready to pay the bill.
The counsel for the panel thereafter adopted his written address and urged the panel to grant the petitioner all the reliefs sought.
On his part, counsel for the police, Fidelis Ogbobe, who informed the panel that he did not file a written address but would make an oral submission, argued that the use of firearms by a police officer is justified in the circumstance the police officer uses it on the late Nyamkwange.
According to him, considering the time the police officer was attacked and he shot the deceased at about 1 am, the use of firearms was justified, adding that Force Order 237, 1990 permitted an officer to use a firearm when his life was in danger.
Ogbobe further cited Principles 9 and 10 of Basic Principle on the use of force and firearms by enforcement agents adopted by the United Nations (UN) in 1992.
He then urged the panel to dismiss the petition in its entirety.
After listening to submissions by both sides, the chairman of the panel, Justice Suleiman Galadima (retd) adjourned for a report of the panel.
A police sergeant, David Moses, while testifying had on Friday, November 12 confessed before the panel that he shot the late Nyamkwange in Abuja, claiming that the suspect later died in the hospital.
According to Sergeant Moses, the deceased was shot in the midnight of April 27, 2020 while he and other policemen, including ASP Danjuma Kadiri Ogwu, were guarding Eterna filling station at Wuse Zone 2, Abuja, when the deceased allegedly struggled with him in an unsuccessful attempt to snatch his rifle from him (Moses).
The sergeant narrated that the deceased and four others wielding shiny cutlasses scaled the perimeter fence of the station and he shot one of them, the late Nyamkwange, who made a futile effort to collect his rifle.
He informed that seeing what happened to one of them, the other four men took to their heels immediately, adding that the deceased did not, however, die on the spot.
Moses informed that he contacted CSP Emeka Onyia, Police Admin Officer, who in turn informed Wuse Police Station to provide a vehicle to convey the victim to the Wuse General Hospital, Abuja, for treatment.
He added that he later went to the Wuse General Hospital to visit the late Nyamkwange and that it was there he learnt of his death.
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