By Okey Alozie
Judicial panel of inquiry constituted by Imo State Governor Senator Hope Uzodimma to check the excesses of the police, appeared to have started doing a good work as many aggrieved people have submitted their petitions before it.
One of the crucial matters raised in the panel yesterday was an allegation that members of National Union of Road Transport Workers NURTW Mgbidi Branch Imo State who were arrested by SARS officials in 2018 up till now have not been seen even when it was also alleged that their houses were demolished in the process.
The matter was adjourned to the 16th of December after the counsel to the petitioner pleaded for consolidation.
All the matters listed in the same vein will be looked into by the panel.
The counsel to the petitioner Chukwuemeka Okoro told our reporter that wives of missing union members came to court to testify.
In a related development, the Widow of the late Mr Kennedy Nwankwo, who demanded hundred million naira as compensation over the death of her husband allegedly shot dead by police was at the Panel.
The Widow of late Kennedy Nwankwo, Mrs Chinwendu Nwankwo has asked the judicial panel of inquiry to assist her in getting Justice for the extra judicial killing of her husband and also the sum of one hundred million naira (100) for the upkeep of her three children. She made the appeal at the hearing of the Commission at Imo state high court in Owerri on Monday, November 30th 2020. In her appeal, she said that her husband who was a painter and interior decorator by profession was the breadwinner of the family and since his death in 2018, life has not been easy for her and the children aged nine, six and three.
According to her petition filed on November 13, 2020 with suit number JCIP/61/2020.
She said that she received a call from her husband in August 2018 informing her that he had gone out of town for business accompanied by a friend, hours later, she got information via Facebook that her husband was shot at Akabo by a police team. She rushed down to the state criminal investigation Department with her mother-in-law, they were directed to CSP Godfrey Victor Ogbede who was the commander of the leopard team of the special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) which was said to have carried out the operation that led to the killing of Mr Kennedy Nwankwo.
According to her, the commander told them that her late husband was found at a wrong place at a wrong time adding that he was shot alongside one Collins Ezenwa. She also said that the police refused to allow her see her late husband’s body and to take it home. She denied any involvement of her late husband with the late Collins Ezenwa saying that he never knew the man.
She pleaded with the Commission for Justice saying that her husband’s death has put his parents in a bad state with him being the only son and that she and her mother are struggling to care for the three children.
The case which was adjourned till December 14 for further hearing was one out of the fifteen suits heard on Monday.
Out of the fifteenth suits, fourteen (14) were leveled against the police, SARS and the Nigeria Civil Defence Corps, NSCDC.
Judgment was given in the suit JCIP/13/2020 suit JCIP/57/2020 which was striked out and the rest adjourned.
The judicial Commission was set recently to look into the alleged police brutality.
Imo people have praised members of the Commission for living up to expectation. Governor Hope Uzodimma has also received kudos for setting up the committee.
