EndsARS Panels Yet To Pay Us—Victims

Some victims of police brutality have lamented the delay in payment of compensations awarded to them by various judicial panels of enquiry set up to investigate claims of killings, torture, extortion and other forms of brutalities against the police.

Youths in many states of the country had in October 2020 staged massive protests against the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad, a police unit notorious for extra-judicial killings and inhuman treatment of suspects.

The EndSARS protests which gained International attention forced the Federal Government to scrap the unit and asked each state to set up a panel to investigate the claims of the victims.

Many of the panels have concluded their sittings and awarded compensations in many cases but the victims who spoke with THE WHISTLER on Friday said they had not been paid any money.

A graduate of Marketing from the Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University, Uli, Anthony Onuagbara, naratted how members of the disbanded SARS injured him on his right eye while serving in the National Youth Service Corps in Ekiti State in 2012.

He said after the policemen had allegedly beaten him and inflicted injury on his right eye, he was framed and arraigned in court for armed robbery but the court dismissed the charges against him.

Onuagbara said the SARS men stormed the house he was living to arrest all the occupants because a prostitute who was brought to the house by one of the occupants could not afford the charges of the lady and the occupants reportedly asked the lady to go without touching her because he could not afford the charges.

Onuagbara, who eventually lost his right eye and now.using artificial eye told our correspondent that he filed a peitition before the panel in Ekiti State and he was awarded N2m as damages but he had yet to be paid.

He said, ” I thank the governor ( Kayode Fayemi) for setting up the panel but I will want the payment to be done without further delay.

” The value of the naira has been on steady decline and the earlier we are paid, the better”

Also, Mrs Florence Fasere, the mother of a final year student of Ekiti State University, Seyi Fasere, who was killed in 2012 by policemen in Ilupeju Ekiti said the panel had not paid her family any compensation.

She said, ” We filed a petition on the killing of my first son, Seyi by the police. We have a lawyer and I went to the panel’s sitting many times.

” I don’t even know what they are saying now but I know that nobody has paid us any compensation.”

Mr. Atanda Jimoh, whose son, Isiaka, was shot dead in Ogbomoso, Oyo State during the EndSARS protest in 2020 also told THE WHISTLER that his family had not been paid any compensation.

He said, ” Our lawyer really worked hard to prove to the panel that the police killed my son. But we have not been paid anything, we are hopeful but no amount can bring back my son.”

Adenitan Adejumo, the elder brother of 15-year-old Lekan Adejumo, who was shot and injured during the EndSARS protest in Ogbomoso also told our correspondent that nobody had paid the family any compensation despite filing a petition before the panel headed by Justice Bolajoko Adeniji.