A Benin-based lawyer, Douglas Ogbakwa, Esq. has narrated how policemen at Azia Junction Check Point along the Onitsha-Owerri Road assaulted and threatened to shoot him for no cause.
Ogbakwa, who narrated his ordeal to journalists in Benin on Friday, said trouble started when the public vehicle he boarded got to the said junction and he saw how Nigerians (passengers) were being molested and their cell phones seized by the policemen for no course.
According to the lawyer, the vehicle he was in was stopped by the policemen and they were about molesting the passenger therein and as he came down from the vehicle and introduced himself as a lawyer, the Second in Command of the team got angry and assaulted him, threatening that he would kill him and nothing will happen.
According to him, “I was coming from Owerri in a public transport and our vehicle and others were stopped by the rude policemen at Azia Junction. The policemen led by a man who introduced himself as Second In Command in Charge of Orlu Area Command, held me down at about 09:38 Hours for over one hour on the excuse that I took photograph of their Armoured Personnel Carriers (APC) which was a ploy to seize my phone. People who regularly ply the road told me this is the way they usually seize people’s phones and later sell them out.
“The so called Second in Command even told me categorically that he was going to seize my phone and sell it at Akwa market. The funniest thing, the Rank and File was even more courteous as they behaved like the officer while the officer behaved like the Rank and File.
“As the argument continued, some passengers had to approach the scene to plead on my behalf, but he cracked his gun and was about shooting which made them to flee the scene. Some person said that that is how they kill innocent persons, and that if it were to be night the incident occurred, they (the policemen) would have shut me.
“I had to call former Inspector-General of Police, Solomon Arase to talk to them and after they spoke with the former IGP, they still did not release my phone as they started boasting which made me to call the Commissioner of Police, Anambra State, who spoke to them before they release my phone that I just bought at Owerri yesterday,” he said.
Ogbakwa said he had ordered his chamber to file a law suit of N100 million against the Nigeria Police for infringing on his fundamental human rights.
(New Telegraph/Headline Exclusion)
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