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By Joel Anekwe
The flurry of demands for financial compensation from police over alleged killing of and brutality against the populace has continued at the Rivers State Commission of Inquiry on police brutality.
Many victims had from the opening day of the panel sitting made demands of huge sums of money as compensation for one form of human right abuse or the other suffered in the hands of the Rivers State command of the Nigeria Police.
The trend continued Wednesday, as two petitioners again presented demand for compensation amounting to N300 million.
First was a 72-year-old pensioner, Fubara Briggs, who demanded for the sum of N200 million from the Nigerian Agip Oil Company (NAOC) over the death of his friend identified as Monday Burabari, whom he alleged took ill and died after he was tortured by policemen at the Borikiri Police Division, Port Harcourt.
Briggs, who said he was the chairman of Spy Police in NAOC where his late friend also worked, explained that they both challenged the ill treatment meted out on them by their black superiors after the exit of the white people, who created the department to empower host communities.
He said: “This Monday Burabari was of the same mind with me and we decided to resist them. We wrote petitions, we challenged management but finally, when they were able to walk me out on age basis, they invited Monday Burabari for a petition that was written years ago. So, they tried him with police officers from Borikiri. How can police officers from Borikiri come to try somebody in Agip Base?
“After the torture that day, the man challenged them that the police office is not supposed to try him because there are documents from the Inspector General of Police telling us the status of the spy police and the Nigeria Police Force.
“When Monday challenged him that he has no power to try him. He ordered Monday to be brutalized. That was in 2012. From that day, Monday started getting sick. They returned him to work until 2015 when he wrote another petition against corruption.
“Then, they had to lay him off. When they laid him off, he could not finance his health issues because he was complaining of chest problem. They sacked him and the problems became worse. That day they detained him there was no medical attention, no food.
“So, it aggravated the illness. The son called me one morning that my friend is dead,” Briggs explained, noting that the police aggravated his illness leading to his death.
“So, I want this panel to compel Agip to pay his family N200 million as compensation because they (diseased family) are suffering. You can see none of them is here because they don’t have transport,” he narrated tearfully.
The second victim, Festus Osuagu, told the commission of inquiry how he lost his ability to walk, and his job, and also suffered partial memory loss, after he was allegedly attacked by operatives of the disbanded SARS.
Osuagu said over two years after the incident, the operatives never told him why was attacked and arrested.
He recalled that the incident happened on January 18, 2018 at No 4, Blessed Young Beke Close, off Chibiak Avenue, Eliparanwo in Port Harcourt, adding that the SARS operatives swooped on him like armed robbers while he made an unsuccessful attempt to run for his life.
The victim said: “On that day I was attacked, I thought it was armed robbers so I ran into the ceiling of a two storey building in a bid to escape. They followed me into the ceiling and in the process I fell from that height. They carried me and took me to their station.
“That resulted in me not being able to walk well till now. I suffer partial loss of memory and stiff neck as well, till today I don’t know why I was attacked like that”.
Osuagu stated that it was only after a superior SARS officer saw his condition and ordered he be sent to the hospital that he was moved. However, he was abandoned afterwards without explanation as to why he was arrested.
Hee appealed to the commission to prevail on the authorities to pay him a compensation of N100 million to cushion the effects of his predicament.
Osuagu said: “No amount of money will be equivalent to what I am going through. They should award the sum of 100 million naira to me to cushion the effects of this predicament.”
