Police killed my woman, claimed she was on drugs, man tells NHRC panel

A businessman, Afemefuna Egwunwa, today told the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC)’s independent investigative panel on the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and other police units that the police killed his woman but claimed that she was on drugs and died as a result of high intake of drugs.

Egwunwa stated this while testifying in the petition, marked 2020/IIP-SARS/ABJ/82, brought before the panel by the family of the late Ifeoma Abugu Stella against DSP Melai Isaac, Inspector Enlemali Agbede and Sergeant Ezekiel Agbede.

The family alleged extra-judicial killing of Stella, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.

According to him, he went to the village with his woman where they did their introduction, adding that upon returning to Abuja, he visited his friend on September 13, 2020, and called his woman who told him that the police had arrested her.

He said he sent one Amara to find out what happened and the police team who arrested his woman told his emissary that it was him they came to arrest but only arrested the late Stella.

Egwunwa told the panel that, “I was the one who called her and she told me that she had been arrested by the police. The police said I was the one they were looking for and I told them I was coming.

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“The following day, I went to the Abattoir (SARS office) with my friend. They told me my woman is dead. They directed us to the Apo division.

“We met Inspector Bulus (at Apo division) who confirmed that she was dead.

“When I went there, they did not detain me. The accusation was that I was selling drugs.”

He told the panel that the police alleged that they met his woman unconscious as of the time they came to look for him, adding that he knew his woman very well.

“I know my woman very well. She does not take alcohol not to talk of drugs,” he said.

According to him, the autopsy conducted on the remains of his woman at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Gwagwalada, Abuja, did not find anything like drugs in her.

Earlier, the elder brother of the deceased, Abugu Alex, told the panel that he was in Lagos when he was called on September 13, 2020, and told that his sister was arrested by the police and that she had already died.

He informed that he came to Abuja from Lagos and went to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command headquarters, where he was told that her sister was on drugs.

According to him, “they (police) told me that my sister was on drugs and that she died as a result of drugs. I called my mother and she said I should get a lawyer.

“I saw my sister’s corpse at the Gwagwalada Hospital where they did the autopsy. That was on the 16th of September.

“There were bruises on her body and foams on the mouth.”

Meanwhile, the chairman of the panel, Justice Suleiman Galadima (retd), has adjourned the petition till February 24 for further hearing.

The panel, however, directed the Chief Pathologist of the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital, Abuja, to appear before it in connection with the petition on the adjourned date.

NIGERIAN TRIBUNE

Police killed my woman, claimed she was on drugs, man tells NHRC panel