Enugu: Lawyers Demand Justice For Lady Murdered In Police Custody

The forum of lawyers of Enugu-Ezike indigenes, Igbo-Eze North Local Government Area of Enugu State, has called on the inspector general of police to investigate the alleged murder of one Miss Stella Ifeoma Abugu, a native of Ugbaike community in Enuge-Ezike, who was allegedly gruesomely murdered in the hands of the operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad of the Nigeria Police Force, Abuja, on 11th September, 2020.

The group, in a statement signed by Prof Uwakwe Abugu, chairman, Justice for Ifeoma Committee, Enugu-Ezike Lawyers’ Forum, and made available to THE WHISTLER at Ogrute, said its action was to promote the cause of justice ‘and our bounding duty to seek justice for our sister, her immediate family, Enugu State and humanity in general’.

According to the group, “We condemn in strongest and unmistaken terms, the inhumane and degrading treatment and consequent murder of our daughter in circumstances that conjure all trappings of illegality, unconstitutionalism, criminality, abuse of office and power, and man’s inhumanity to man. This is one death too many in the hands of the operatives of SARS as the Nigerian media is replete with reports of similar treatments and murder of other innocent Nigerians in different parts of the country.

“Unfolding revelations from reliable sources indicate that three SARS operatives whose identities are still being shielded by the Nigeria Police Force, in the evening of 10th September, 2020, went to the residence of the late Miss Ifeoma Abugu and her fiancé with the mission to arrest the man. On their arrival and finding that their target, the man, was not at home, they illegally and brazenly arrested and took away Ifeoma in lieu of her fiancé. The following morning, 11th September, 2020 Ifeoma, was already dead in their custody. And SARS operatives deposited her seriously violated body in the morgue.”

Our correspondent gathered that the deceased was a young graduate, who just completed her National Youth Service.

The group in the statement added that, “In the first place, the action of SARS operatives by arresting Ifeoma in place of her fiancé is outright illegal and in clear breach of the law. Section 7 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, unequivocally abolished any ‘arrest in lieu’ in the following words: ‘No person shall be arrested in place of a suspect’. Secondly, what manner of inhumane and degrading treatments were meted to Ifeoma that she died before the break of dawn, with her corpse revealing suspected physical and sexual assaults?”

The forum therefore called on the inspector general of police and the police hierarchy to ensure transparency and diligence in the investigation of Ifeoma’s death, adding that, “We equally enjoin the National Human Rights Commission to exert requisite pressure on the police authorities to conduct credible investigations and ensure that culprits are not shielded from appropriate punishment. We assure the general public and, in particular, all the individuals, groups, institutions and other concerned citizens who are pained by Ifeoma’s death that we shall, working in collaboration with relevant stakeholders and agencies, leave no stone unturned to ensure that Ifeoma’s spirit get justice, the bereaved compensated, and the perpetrators brought to book.”