A petitioner on Friday broke down in tears while testifying before the #EndSARS panel in Abuja about how the police tortured and detained him for 28 days in 2019.
Emenike Umezurike, a site manager, narrated how he was allegedly arrested, detained and tortured unlawfully by the men of the Umuagwu police division in Rivers State.
The arrest by the police, he said, was carried out in cahoots with a man who had shown interest in a landed property a neighbour asked him to sell.
Mr Umezurike recounted the trauma and health issues he has been dealing with since his release around June 2019.
Overwhelmed with emotions, the petitioner stopped talking for a while in order to calm himself and regain a stable voice to continue his testimony.
“They tortured, starved and tear gassed me for five days and refused to let me go,” he said amid tears.
According to him, he now has to frequent hospital after developing some health complications due to the prolonged detention.
“I can’t breathe properly or stay in an air conditioned place as I now have pneumonia and have to frequent the hospital for treatment,” he said.
‘How police arrested, detained and tortured me’
Mr Umezurike, based in Aba, Abia State, said he got a deal to sell a landed property while in Owerri, Imo State, supervising a construction project.
On returning to Aba during a weekend, he said a person showed interest in the property while discussing it with a friend at a barbershop.
The person, he said, connected him with his brother whom he said just returned from Europe and was in need of the landed property.
They agreed to meet in Owerri on May 6, 2019, but it was unknown to him that he was being set up for arrest, the petitioner said. “I waited for him at a neighboring filling station in the afternoon on May 6, (2019) and he appeared with some armed men. They told me I was under arrest and refused to give me a reason.”
More ordeals
Mr Umezurike testified that they took him from Owerri to Umuagwu village in Rivers State and demanded N5 million to release him.
“I told them I could not afford that amount because I didn’t have any money. They kept me there from 1 p.m. to 6 p.m.and returned later to see if I was ready to transfer the money,” he said.
Unable to pay the money, Mr Umezurike said he was kept in solitary confinement with no water or food, while the police officers kept tear-gassing him every night for five days at the police station.
He added that the man who lured him into the arrest later came back and claimed to be a tracker and that he had been on his trail since 2014.
Mr Umezurike said he immediately questioned the claim and reminded him that they met for the first time some days earlier. But the petitioner said it turned out that the phone number the man claimed to have been tracking was not his.
Fraud allegations
He told the panel that while in detention, the police presented a woman, named Jessica Osunbo, who accused him of defrauding her of N5 million. He denied the charge, claiming that he had never met or done business with the woman.
He said he demanded to be permitted to call his family at that moment, but that the police flatly refused and returned him to his cell.
Ms Osunbo, he said, returned the next day and claimed that he had defrauded him of N4. 5 million, contrary to what she had said the day before. He said further that she came again and claimed that he defrauded her of N4 million, not N4.5 million or N5 million as she had previously claimed.
He said after a while, on the same day, he was able to talk to one of the police officers who interceded on his behalf by pleading “that I be sent to the other cell where there are other detainees so I can be given food.”
“They sent me to the cell that day and I managed to give my brother’s number to one of the detainees who got bailed, so my family could come get me,” he added.
Futile police commissioner’s intervention
His brother immediately came around and began to make contacts until he was connected to the state commissioner of police through one Francis Agaim, the petitioner said. Mr Agaim was said to be the man Mr Umezurike was supervising his construction project in Owerri.

The petitioner said the commissioner of police called the DPO of Umuagwu police station to release him. “The DPO said he would release me on Monday but when my brother came back on Monday the DPO said I had been charged to court and that they should go to court and wait for my bail.”
However, when Monday came, he said the police refused to take him to court. Instead, he testified that the police continued to ask him to pay N5 million.
Release
As all persuassions to get the police to release him failed, Mr Umezurike said his family petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) and the Nigerian Bar Association in Imo State, alleging his illegal arrest and detention.
He said he got released when the NHRC came to Umuagwu police station and found him in the cell.
After his release, he said he got a lawyer to help press for justice. As a result of this, the petitioner said one Sunday was arrested by the officers of Cameroun Barracks police station in Aba.
He also said the DPO of Umuagwu police station promised to withdraw the case initiated against him at the Federal High Court, Umuahia, Abia State. However, the petitioner said the police continued to pursue the case without his knowledge and later obtained a bench warrant against him.
His prayers
In his prayers, Mr Umezurike urged the panel to intervene in the matter and help get to its root, lamenting that the accusations levelled against him by the police were still pending at the Federal High Court, Umuahia.
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He added that he had applied for the Certified True Copies (CTCs) of the statements of Sunday and other suspects arrested by the Cameroun Barracks police station regarding the case.
He said a police officer at the Cameroun Barracks station showed him Sunday’s case file, picture and statement but refused to release it as evidence.
He urged the panel to award him N100 million compensation for the health conditions he developed as a result of the prolonged detention.
The panel adjourned the case until March 9 for defence by the police.

The 11-member panel chaired by a retired Justice of the Supreme Court, Suleiman Galadima, was set up by the NHRC in the aftermath of the October 2020 #EndSARS protest against police brutality, to probe cases of rights violations perpetrated by the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and other police units.
The panel is to recommend compensations for victims and sanction for erring police officers at the end of its hearing.
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