The Rivers State Judicial Commission of Inquiry on police brutalities has dismissed a petition for lack of jurisdiction, filed by the family of late John Nwabeke who was brutally murdered in 2017 by Police Officers attached to Inspector General of Police Unit attached to Borokiri Station.
The petition dismissed was seeking enforcement for the compensation judgement delivered by a High Court in Port Harcourt, in favour of the Claimant which the Nigerian Police is yet to comply with till date.
In another testimony, Mark Atachi, brother of late Mark Chinatu Bright, a taxi driver at Rumuokoro Motor Park popularly known as Oyibo, who was shot to death inside his car by a Police Officer at Rumuokoro bus stop on 18th February 2018, demanded justice and one hundred million naira compensation to the family.
According to him, despite the condolence visits to the family by the then, Commissioner of Police CP Ahmed Zaki a few days after his brother’s demise, nothing has been done by the Police force to arrest the officer or compensate the bereaved family.
Mark testified that based on the failure of the Police to ensure justice or fund the burial, the legal adviser to Civil Society Group wrote a letter to the CP requesting for the release of the autopsy and the taxi of the deceased which was in police custody. He added that the car was later released without the car battery .
He told the panel that his brother committed no crime to have been shot on the head by a police officer who approached him for obstructing traffic at Rumuokoro junction in Obio Akpor.
He demanded for justice for the late brother’s daughter who was just four months old when the father was killed and the wife who has been suffering due to the death of her husband whom their marriage was just a year old before his demise.
The Commission however adjourned the matter to 2nd December, following the request of Police Counsel to invite the Police Public Relations Officer, SP Nnamdi Omoni to confirm if truly CP Ahmed Zaki paid the petitioner’s family a visit following the Police Counsel’s request.
