By Fola James
The Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu is under serious pressure by civil society bodies in the country to investigate the circumstances that led to the death of one Chima Ikwuando, who allegedly died in police custody last December in River state.
A civil rights group in Lagos, the Centre for Law and Civil Culture has demanded a full investigation into the matter with a view to getting to the bottom of it.
In a petition addressed to the IGP and made available to the magazine, the rights group said the death of Ikwuondo could have been avoided by the police, which it said has a bad record of toying with the lives of Nigerians.
CLCC said the police did not act responsibly on the matter and should be held responsible for the victim’s untimely death.
According to a statement signed by CLCC Executive Secretary, Abdulganeey Imran Esq, the body said the “pathetic allegations involving the arrest, detention, extortion, torture and subsequent killing of one Chima Ikwuando who died in police custody at Eagle Crack, Mile 1 police station, Rivers State in a mysterious, painful and unfortunate circumstance,’ should be investigated.
“The late Chima Ikwuando was arrested alongside four of his apprentices – Victor Ogbonna, Osaze Friday, IfeanyiOsuji and IfeanyiOnyekwere by the men of the Nigerian Police, Eagle Crack, Mile 1 police station, Rivers state on the 19th December, 2019.
Chima has not been seen alive since then as he was alleged to have been tortured to death under a serious questionable circumstance while in Police custody.
The accused persons were mere artisans testing two vehicles – Toyota Camry and Toyota Corolla – they had worked on for their customers.
They were only test-driving the vehicles when the unfortunate arrest by the police happened,” the rights group said.
The four men and the late Chima Ikwunado clcc said, were initially accused of armed robbery and stealing of the two vehicles.
But the initial allegations could not be sustained after the owners of the vehicles, one Erepamo Eradiri and Chinedu Ezenwaliri confirmed to the police that the accused were not robbers, clcc said.
Based on the clarification, “the vehicles were immediately released to the owner but the remaining four victims were never released by the Police, the group said, adding “on the day of arraignment, several sores and infections were noticeably seen all over their bodies as a result of the torture and ill treatment allegedly meted out to them by the men of the Nigerian Police while in their custody.
Apart from this, the suspects were also allegedly extorted of N150,000.00 by men of the Nigerian police.
“On the basis of this” therefore CLCC said the IG must “set up an independent investigations to unravel the circumstance that occasioned the arrest, detention, extortion, torture, humiliation and the questionable arraignment of Victor Ogbonna, Osaze Friday, IfeanyiOsuji and IfeanyiOnyekwere and the violent killing of Chima Ikwunado by the men of the Nigerian Police Force.”
