Dekina: Odu-Ochele Community Petitions IGP Over Extrajudicial Killing

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Odu-Ochele community in Dekina Local Government Area of Kogi State has petitioned the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Solomon Arase over alleged killing of its member, one Farouk Isiaka by the police on September 21.

 

The petition signed by the community’s counsel, Williams Aliwo, and presented by Dr Umar Ismaila, one of the community leaders, alleged that heavily armed policemen had on September 21 invaded Odu-Ochele in seven Toyota Hilux vans in search of one Zekeri.

 

The petitioners alleged that the police arrived at the compound of Isiaka Omajenu, father of the wanted Zekeri, ransacked all the rooms in the compound asking, “Where is Zekeri, where is that armed robber called Zekeri.”

 

It added that  after a futile search for Zekeri, the police, reportedly arrested Zekeri’s parents and pushed them into one of the vans to take to Lokoja but the deceased (Farouk Isiaka) who was also one of the siblings of Zekeri questioned the rational for arresting his parents.

 

“If you came to arrest Zekeri and cannot find him, why my parents?” Farouk was said to have asked the police, but the question according to the community, “irked the police who shot and killed him under the watchful eyes of his parents, wife and two children.”

 

The police were alleged to have thereafter taken the deceased’s remains, his parents along with the deceased’s wife and two children and drove off “only to drop the children by the roadside at Agbeji”.

 

The community described the deceased, who was a holder of the Nigeria Certificate in Education (NCE) from the Kogi State College of Education, Ankpa, as a humble and peaceful person.

 

The petitioners said on arrival in Lokoja, the police, “knowing what they did was unprofessional and dastardly, promptly charged the two women (mother and wife of the deceased) to court on trumped up charges”.

 

“The community and the family particularly are traumatized by this barbaric act and we appeal for their release,” part of the petition read.

 

The state Commissioner of Police, Emmanuel Ojukwu, while parading the corpse and family of the deceased among 72 suspects arrested for various offences  recently, described the deceased as an armed robber who engaged the police in a shootout.

 

Father of the deceased, Isiaka Omajenu, according to the commissioner was arrested for armed robbery while the women were charged with shielding criminals.


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