The Rivers State Police Command on Thursday failed to appear at the ongoing public hearing by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions on the killing of Chima Ikwunado, an auto mechanic and brutalisation of four others in Port Harcourt.
According to Saharareportets, at the commencement of the hearing on Thursday at room 429 New Building House of Representatives, the police were conspicuously absent when the matter was called.
The police did not show up despite the formal invitation extended to the state’s police command in respect of the alleged torture of five young men and subsequent killing of one of them, Chima Ikwunado, by the Eagle Crack Squad led by Superintendent of Police, Benson Adetuyi in December 2019.
The development prevented the committee from going ahead with the deliberation on the matter.
Irked by the uncooperative attitude of the police in the matter, the Rivers State Civil Society Organisations, led by Enefaa Georgewill, who was also the petitioner, described the action as an attempt to thwart and frustrate the matter.
Georgewill accused the police of deliberately shielding the former Commander of the Eagle Crack Squad, Benson Adetuyi,, and Inspector Sam Amadi from being prosecuted.
He said he was disappointed by the committee for not forcing police to come for the hearing.
Georgewill lamented the huge financial expenses they had incurred on transport,
“Last time police refused to appear before the committee and today again they did not come and they were served in our presence,” he said. “The committee served the DIG, Provost of Nigerian Police another invitation asking them to come in two weeks from that date which is December 10, 2020.
“We spent our money. We risked our lives and left our businesses from Port Harcourt Rivers State. Police, in their usual manner, still refused to appear before the committee. We expect the committee to come hard on the police. We will not say that the committee is complicit, but we only feel that the committee has not taken appropriate action on the police as it ought to be.
Georgewill called on the committee to compel the police to honour the invitation in the interest of justice.
The chairman of the committee, Jerry Alagbaoso, who was visibly angry, directed the committee clerk to issue another summon to the River State Commissioner of Police and leadership of Eagle Crack Squad in the state.
He adjourned the matter till January 2021, adding that a date would be communicated to the parties involved in the issue.
