Police Brutality: After Victor David, Who’s Next?
By UbongAbasi Ise
Police belongs to the league
of necessary evils that civilization could not progress without. Since policing
is the lifeblood of governance, and without it no government could be
effective, we allow reckless brutality and extreme cruelty roughly known by
mankind to thrive inexorably on the back of this security outfit. Out of pure
motive to safeguard our societies and civilizations from sliding into chaos and
anarchy, or descend to Thomas Hobbes’s original state of nature in Leviathan where life was solitary, poor,
nasty, brutish, and short, we have no choice other than to tolerate both
weaknesses and excesses of the police institution. But where do we go from here?
In Nigeria,
despite the unending timeline of all manner of police brutalities on the
hapless, poor civilians, no sane mind could ever reckon that the institution be
scrapped. Instead there have been several efforts, both vapid and concerted, to
reform and sanitize it, and unfortunately, some elements are always there to
sustain the bad name and wrongful perception of the Nigerian Police Force. Sometimes
it makes one wonder if some policemen even have iota of respect to their
fiduciary duty of having to look out for the safety of lives and properties as
well as the extant laws of the land that they were drafted to protect. Police
brutality happens almost every day. February 17, 2018 was the day Mr. Victor Otu
David reportedly became a victim of police arbitrariness, and he is now living
with permanent disability. Tomorrow, it could be me; it could be you, or anyone
else.
When Victor
David, 36, an indigene of Okopedi in Okobo local government area went out on that
fateful day to his normal business at Okopedi motor-park, just as other days, having
waved bye to his beloved pregnant wife and his daughter, he thought the day
would end well, and he hoped to return home to his family as usual. But quite unfortunately,
he was treated to a buffet of police recklessness which thenceforth rendered
him disabled, perhaps, for the rest of his life.
David could
have been leery about the Nigerian police as it has become unwritten code for
the civilians to do so and stay out of trouble given the age-long experience of
some police elements that would, out of frustration, be resorting to calling
the innocent dog a thief in order to smash its head. But Victor David threw all
cautions to the air and joined other concerned, risk-taking individuals at the
scene of arrest at Esit’s compound along Wisdom Road in Okopedi where suspects
of banditry were said to have been dwelling.
Victor David
told our correspondent that he was amongst the onlookers when police raided Esit’s
compound on two occasions on February 17, 2018. First they arrested a suspect
simply known as Kufre, and he (Victor David) was asked by the police to assist
them in unlocking the gate to the compound, after which he returned to his
place of work. At about 3.00 pm, David said he was greeted with the news that
the police had returned to the area having recovered the stolen properties.
With this news, he went once again to the scene with his workplace colleague,
Mr. Emana Attah. On reaching there to
witness the unfolding event, he found DPO Joseph Udourioh with the community
leaders, amongst whom were Chief Imo Efiong, the village head, and Mr. Emman
Johnson, the Okopedi motor park chairman.
What the DPO
did, according to Victor David, was to cock AK47 rifle and shot into the air
following his failed attempts with other guns on the first two attempts, after
which he ordered David and his colleague, Mr. Emana Attah, into the police
Hilux, and they were taken to the Okobo police station.
David
recounted how DPO Udourioh interrogated him on arriving the station in order to
find out if he knew the identity of the suspects of the crime. After he stated
severally that he had no idea of who the suspects were, Victor David said the
DPO then took him to behind his office, and shot at his shin after missing
previous targets.
In David’s
words, “We entered the Hilux and they took us to the police station; we were
left at the counter. Later on, the DPO sent for me, and I was taken to
somewhere behind his office where other two policemen were standing. Then the
DPO asked me: “were you the one that opened the gate for my men?” and I said
yes. He then asked me to tell the truth if I know those boys that stole those
properties. I said No, and that I only came to witness the incident. At that
point the DPO fired the gun close to my left leg. He shot the second time, and
the third time, he shot at my right leg.”
Having,
probably, came to realize that Mr. Victor David has no hand in the crime, DPO
Joseph Udourioh took the victim in the police van to a hospital in Iquita in
Oron but the management turned down admitting Mr. David into their facility,
and he was later admitted into the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital in Uyo
by the time he lost consciousness apparently due to hemorrhaging.
After more than a week in the
Emergency Unit, the victim was later taken to Orthopedic Unit at the same
hospital where a six inches bone at the affected region was severed and iron
fixed to help support the ligaments. He also recalled how his wife, who was
heavily pregnant at the time, delivered of a baby boy at the same hospital and
the family condition became aggravated.
The victim
had admitted to our correspondent that DPO Joseph Udourioh had borne his
hospital bill at the initial stage, but has since abandoned him to face his own
predicament.
Meanwhile the Akwa Ibom State
Human Rights Community in a petition to the state Commissioner of Police, dated
February 7, 2019, and signed by its coordinator, Barr. Clifford Thomas, has
noted how the DPO apologized to the victim but confessed that he had killed
several persons in the like manner and nothing happened.
The human
rights body has called on the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Police to launch
a full scale investigation into the case with a view to getting to the bottom
of the matter.
In his
interaction with The Sensor, Mr.
Victor David said he could no longer cater for the wellbeing of his young
family which consists of a wife, a nine-month son and a daughter of about 2
years of age.
He said all
the money he ever made while working at Okopedi Motor Park before the incident
occurred has gone for treatment of a nagging leg problem, and he is
distressfully calling for the state authority to come to his aid.
Having felt
abandoned by DPO Udourioh, Mr. David called on the attention of the Akwa Ibom
State Governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel; the Speaker of the House of Akwa Ibom State
House of Assembly, Barr. Onofiok Luke; His Royal Majesty, E.O. Isemin (Ahya Oro
VII ); the youth of Okobo; and Akwa
Ibom State Human Rights Community to come to his remedy as the ordeal has taken
a huge toll on his health and the wellbeing of his family.
The spates of
high-profiled brutalities perpetrated by men of the Force really need urgent
attention. In March in Nyanya, Abuja, a policeman allegedly beat up and killed Ogar
Jombo, a two-star officer of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC),
for violating traffic rules, and this happened in the very eyes of the deceased
wife and children. Now in April, Olalekan Ogunyemi, a police inspector, who was attached to the
Anti-Cultism Unit of the Lagos State Police Command, shot dead 36-year-old Kolade
Johnson during a raid around a football viewing centre in the Onipetesi area of
the state. It feels so bad to see how the citizens have been subjected to
nefarious mishandling. The absurdity called police brutality in recent times
aptly called all stakeholders in the security matters to sit down and review
our policing history and put forward the need, as a nation, to retrace our
steps to where things started to go wrong as the country is drifting towards
the perplexing doldrums of insecurity.
Yes! I am UbongAbasi Ise. For Comment, send
SMS to 08189914609 | ubongabasiise@gmail.com
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