After being unfairly beaten with gun butts and other weapons, Abuja-based businessman Kenneth Odeh has reported three police officers to the Inspector General of Police, requesting swift action to punish them and deter similar behavior from others in their group.
Kenneth, an engineer, who resides in Mabglobal Estate, opposite the Public Service Institute Abuja, said he was brutally attacked, intimidated and seriously wounded by the three policemen led by Isa Momoh, a deputy superintendent of police and one Itodo and one Segun on Saturday, August 17 under the EFAP Metropolitan Bridge in Abuja without committing any offence known to law.
In a petition dated August 18, and addressed to IGP, and sighted by Vanguard on Thursday, the terrorised citizen, who is nursing multiple wounds on his head and body, pleaded with the police high command to investigate his attack by the three policemen and illegal detention at the Galadinmawa, which is notorious for holding victims in a dingy 40-feet container without water, windows and toilets.
The victim said that apart from inflicting physical harm to his body, the three policemen also made him to lose his wallet containing £1000, a cap, power bank and a Samsun Galaxy Fold 3 phone broken.
Mr. Odeh said the policemen first asked him to open his booth and he did and thereafter ordered him to produce his car particulars, which would expire in November this year, and he complied but was shocked to be asked by the policemen to follow them to their office in Galadinma.
In the document signed by the Principal Partner of Graham Ochogwu of Risenarch Attorneys, on behalf of Odeh, the petitioner wrote: “They hit him on the face and other parts of his body with the butt of their guns and sticks. It was then that he realised that they were drunk. They collected his car keys at gun point and threatened to waste him. They bundled him into a Hilux van and took him to Galadinma police station. In the process of manhandling our client without provocation, he lost his wallet containing 1000 pounds, a cap, a 40,000 Mah power bank and his Samsung Glaxy Fold 3 phone’ screen was smashed.
“Upon arriving at the police station, he was locked up with about 10 people (most of them have been there for an upward of two months) in a container without ventilation with a bucket toilet for over two hours. It took the intervention of a retired military officer before he was released but as of the time of writing this petition his car is still being detained in spite every plea for it to be released.
“Our client proceeded to the hospital where he did series of medical tests and his injuries were treated. Attached herein is a receipt for the medical report which is being processed at the hospital.
As a result of the assaults and threats, he has been experiencing severe anxiety, physical pain and he fear for his safety and well-being.
We therefore, respectfully request your highly esteemed office to initiate a thorough investigation into this matter and take necessary disciplinary action against DSP Isa Momoh, Mr Itodo and Mr. Segun and the back-up team that perpetrated this barbaric assault on our client for his car, his wallet containing money and other properties that got missing to be returned to him,” the citizen wrote.
