It&#8217;s been six years since Jude Nnaji disappeared. For his family, including a six-year-old daughter he never met, moving on has been an impossible task.



Jude Chinonso Nnaji, who was 26 when he went missing, was many things rolled into one.



He finished his secondary school education at Union Secondary School, Ugbaike, in the Enugu-Ezike village of Enugu state. Struggling to get admission into the university to study microbiology (or nursing, because he wanted to care for people), he learnt how to repair faulty electrical connections. From his savings, he began buying and selling gallons of palm oil. He eventually bought a motorcycle for himself.&nbsp;



Jude was also an aspiring dancer and musician. He wrote many songs he unfortunately never got to record. His favourite song was ‘Never Forget Me’ by the American hip-hop group Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, which he played almost every day. The song features Senegalese-American singer Akon, who was Jude’s favourite musician.&nbsp;



Part of a large family, which consisted of his mother and eight other siblings, Jude had lost his father in 2007. Jude loved his family; he constructed some rooms for his mother, which now serve as her kitchen and storage rooms, and also paid the fees of one of his sisters who was in secondary school.



Jude’s greatest desire was to travel out of the country, preferably to Dubai &#8211; where he planned to work hard and make a lot of money, return to Nigeria and help his mother, siblings, wife and children have a better life. But this dream never came true.



On the morning of January 13, 2015, Jude’s brother-in-law, Okpe Onyebuchi, called him to accompany him to see a friend in Obollo-Afor, a town in the Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State. According to Jude’s family, it was at Obollo-Afor that officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (widely known as Awkuzu SARS), arrested him.&nbsp;



“My brother was at home that day when he got a call from a friend who asked him to come to Obollo Afor,” recalls Ifunanya Nnaji, Jude’s sister.



On January 15, two days after Jude’s arrest, six SARS operatives showed up at his family house, driving in black Toyota Sienna and Camry cars and wearing black clothes. Without an explanation, they ransacked the house. After not finding what they were looking for, they told Jude’s mother not to come in search of her son. Jude’s mother asked the officers what crime her son had committed. There was no response.&nbsp;



“They did not tell us what exactly he did,” Ifunanya says.&nbsp;



Jude’s elder brother, 40-year-old Michael Nnaji, found out the SARS officers’ office was in Awkuzu, a town in the Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State. He went there and was threatened by the officers, who told him never to come in search of his brother again, as he risked being locked up.&nbsp;



Micheal defied that warning and turned up again at the SARS station on January 23. This time, the officers did not even open the gates for him.&nbsp;



“After that day, Micheal didn&#8217;t go back to the station because of the threats. They warned him not to go back again,” says Ifunanya.&nbsp;



Jude’s family, out of fear and lacking anyone to fight for them, steered clear from the SARS office and prayed for Jude’s return.



Six years on, Jude is yet to return.&nbsp;



Okpe Onyebuchi, the brother-in-law whom Jude had accompanied to Obollo-Afor on the day he was arrested, was only seen three months after the incident. Mr. Onyebuchi revealed that he had put Jude’s SIM card in his phone, and it was through the card that the SARS officers had tracked them. The officers had come specifically for Jude. That was why Mr. Onyebuchi spent only three months in custody. Why the officers were after Jude remains a mystery.



Jude’s wife, Rita Jude, while carrying the couple’s second daughter, had not been around during the incident. She had been in the town of Onitsha where she sold food.&nbsp;



Rita says she misses her husband, especially the affection he showered on her, and the laughter-filled conversations they shared. She says her husband was hardworking and made sure his family never lacked.&nbsp;



Rita, who eventually gave birth to a second child, a girl, on September 15, 2015, says she had a dream in which she had a debate with her husband on what name to give the baby. In the dream, she told her husband she preferred to name the baby Chidiomimi (God is mysterious), but Jude suggested the name Chiziterem (Godsent).&nbsp;



Chiziterem Nnaji is six years old now.



Rita says her children keep asking her about their father, and she still doesn’t know how to tell them that he is missing and might be dead. She works at a betting shop to feed her children and take them through school. Being a single mother, she confesses, has not been easy.



In the wake of the nationwide #EndSARS protests in October 2020, Enugu State’s Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi set up a panel to investigate complaints of police brutality or related extrajudicial killings. Ifunanya, who was 15 when her brother Jude was arrested, saw an opportunity to demand justice.



With the help of a lawyer, she drafted a statement and submitted it to the panel. She was asked by the panel to go and serve letters to the officers said to have carried out the arrest. She says she has not been able to do that because she is afraid of what might happen if she goes back, given the fact that she has been warned not to return. The panel has since rounded up hearings.



Ifunanya remembers her brother as strict but loving. He would encourage her not to look down on herself, advising her to take her education seriously.&nbsp;



Her brother, she recalls, was shrewd when it came to business ideas and investments. “He got a motorcycle for himself from his savings. He was also buying and selling gallons of palm oil with his savings, and was earning money from it,” she says.



Jude’s absence over the last six years has left his family distraught. Jude’s mother, Roseline Nnaji, has burnt most of the papers that contained her son’s song lyrics, because she does not want to be reminded of him. “I don’t know whether he is still alive or they [SARS officers] have killed him,” she says.



“I don’t have money to look for him. I don’t even have anybody who is behind me in the case,” she continues. “I want to see Jude. That is my problem.”



As for Ifunaya, remembering her brother has been made easy by his favourite song. “I still play ‘Never Forget Me’ ,” she says. “Anytime I play the song, it reminds me of my brother and the dreams he had.”

Never Forget Me

Four years after being arrested, Joel Nnaemka Ugwuoke has not returned from the station &#8211; neither has he been seen.



Joel Nnaemeka Ugwuoke, who was arrested at 21, was an aspiring musician and a Hip-hop fan.



He also loved football and played the beautiful game with friends and neighbours.&nbsp;



Joel worked at construction sites &#8211; mixing sand and cement, and moulding cement blocks. He had also started learning how to paint houses.



An indigene of the southeastern town of Nsukka, Jude was a Political Science freshman at the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN).



People in his family and neighbourhood say he was a respectful and hardworking young man.&nbsp;



On January 12, 2017, three days after his matriculation into the university, a group of local security men, in the company of officers of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF), came to the Joel’s parents’ house, located behind Bishop Shanahan Hospital, a Catholic Church-owned hospital in the southeastern town.&nbsp;



The officers knocked on the door of the house at 3 am.&nbsp;



They said they worked at the hospital and demanded to know the whereabouts of Joel. Nkechi Ugwuoke, one of Joel’s sisters, told the officers where her brother was: at the house of another of their sisters in the neighbouring community of Nru Nsukka.&nbsp;



Uzoamaka Ugwuoke, Joel’s other sister, says she was angry that Nkechi Ugwuoke revealed their brother’s whereabouts, although she acknowledges that her sister had spoken out of fear. Uzoamaka joined the local security men and the Anti-Kidnapping officers, who she remembers numbered up to 15, in their Hilux and directed them to Nru Nsukka, which was 20 minutes away.



At Nru Nsukka, the security men arrested Joel. Visibly shocked, he demanded to know why he was being arrested. “They [the officers] told him that he was an armed robber and a cultist,” Uzoamaka recalls. The Anti-Kidnapping Unit took Joel to their headquarters at the capital city, Enugu.&nbsp;



Uzoamaka discovered that the unit had already arrested two other men. The story goes that Joel had bought a phone and sold it to the first man, who then sold the phone to the second man. The phone, believed to have been stolen initially, had been traced by the unit and found in the hands of the second man, who then led the unit to the first man. The first man in turn gave the unit Joel’s address.



Four years later, Uzoamaka and her family have neither seen Joel nor been able to secure his release from police custody. The police unit keeps denying that Joel is in their custody.&nbsp;



Uzoamaka and her family at one point engaged the services of a lawyer, whom the police intimidated into abandoning the case.&nbsp;



“We have been begging that the case be taken to court so the law can decide his [Joel’s] fate. But they [Anti-Kidnapping Unit] have refused,” Uzoamaka says.



On one of her numerous visits to the police station, a man who sold cars close to the station confided in Uzoamaka about being sure that Joel was in the custody of the police. The man said that he feared Joel’s life was at risk.&nbsp;



Months after the arrest, the police released the other two men, but no one has seen or heard from Joel since.



Uzoamaka is emotional when remembers her missing brother, who she says loved to sing and had written many songs which he never got to record.&nbsp;



According to Uzoamaka, a member of the Anti-Kidnapping Unit, who identified himself as Abugu, had told her family to give him 500,000 naira to arrange for Joel’s release. The family could not come up with the money because they had exhausted all their resources.



“We have spent more than 700,000 on the case,” a distressed Uzoamaka says.&nbsp;



She reveals that the uncertainty shrouding her brother’s case has plunged her family into dark times. While their grandmother has died out of worry, their parents seem to be heading down the same path with their mental health in dire condition.



In October 2020, as a response to the nationwide #ENDSARS protests, Enugu State’s governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi set up a panel to investigate cases of extrajudicial killings and police brutality in the state. Uzoamaka’s family submitted a petition to the panel. The panel, before rounding up hearing, asked Uzoamaka to go and serve letters to the officers said to have carried out Joel’s arrest.

Disappearance or Death?

Chukwuma Ihezie tried to help a client solve an issue, a move that marked the beginning of the end of his life. &nbsp;



Chukwuma Ihezie, was killed by SARS officers on January 18, 2014. He graduated from the Institute of Management Technology (IMT) Enugu where he studied mechanical engineering.&nbsp;



While he waited for his call-up letter from the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) so he could embark on the mandatory one-year national service, he worked as a taxi driver to make ends meet.&nbsp;



Unfortunately, he ran into some police officers who said he was an armed robber, simply because he reported a disagreement between one of his clients and his client’s friends. The officers took him to SARS’ office and that is where his life came to an end.&nbsp;



Chinedu Ihezie, from Isiala Mbano, Imo State, is Chukwuma’s older brother.



According to Chinedu, his brother was killed by Felix Bolu, who was then the second-in-command of SARS in Enugu.



Uche Osondu, a member of a Nollywood film production crew, had hired Chukwuma to take him to the Media Royal Hotel in Enugu, the eponymous capital of Enugu state. Anytime Osondu visited Enugu to film, he always used Chukwuma as his taxi guy.&nbsp;



According to eyewitness accounts, when Osondu and Chukwuma got to the hotel on the day of the incident, January 12, 2014, Osondu went into the hotel to chat with some of his friends, including movie stars, who were in Enugu. Chukwuma waited patiently outside the hotel.&nbsp;



After a while Chukwuma overhead Osondu&#8217;s friends calling him (Osundu) an “armed robber” because Osondu had asked them for some money they were owing him.&nbsp;



It resulted in a misunderstanding amidst heated arguments. When Chukwuma overheard them referring to Osondu as an armed robber, he quickly ran to a police checkpoint close to Toscana Hotel and reported what was happening. He met an officer known as Bassey, who was the leader of a group of four policemen on duty that day.&nbsp;



Rather than visit the scene of the heated exchange between Osondu and his friends, Bassey arrested Chukwuma and took him to the Independent Layout police station.&nbsp;



Back at the hotel, Osondu&#8217;s friends held him until some officers came. One of the officers, identified as Sergeant Dogo, shot Osondu. They also took him to the Independence Layout Police Station. While they were there, those who had arrested Chukwuma came in with him.&nbsp;



A police officer at the station later told Chukwuma’s brother Chinedu that when the Divisional Police Officer (DPO)&nbsp; Mohammed Zakari Yau came in and asked the police officer why he had shot Osondu, the sergeant knelt down and spoke to the DPO in his language.&nbsp;



After the DPO finished speaking with the sergeant, the DPO said it was an “armed robbery matter” and he would have to refer the case to SARS.&nbsp;



That was how Osondu and Chukwuma were transferred to the SARS unit in New Market, Enugu that night. The DPO drove Chukwuma&#8217;s car to the SARS office. When they got there, he handed it over to Felix Bolu, who was the Second-in-command of SARS then. Officer Bolu asked his officers to prepare a statement immediately. Afterwards, he ordered Osondu and Chukwuma to sign the statements. Osondu obliged but Chukwuma refused to sign the statement, insisting that as an educated man, he was able to write his own statement.



Bolu warned Chukwuma that his order wasn’t up for debate. But Chukwuma refused to sign the statement. The police officer who recounted the event to Chinedu said that Bolu brought out his pistol and shot Chukwuma in his legs four times.&nbsp;



Chukwuma was forced to sign the statement, and that statement was given to the Commissioner of Police. When Chinedu got to the station, the CP claimed that his brother was an armed robber and that he had even made a confessional statement. Chinedu said the handwriting was not his brother&#8217;s.&nbsp;



Chinedu had started searching for Chukwuma’s whereabouts on January 13, 2014. He arrived at SARS’ office around 7 p.m. and met Cpl. Mike, who took him inside SARS’ premises. The officer opened a book on the counter and confirmed that Chukwuma was in their custody. “I wanted to see Chukwuma but Mike declined and said I could only do so if their commander or Bolu gave me permission,” Chinedu remembers.



“I contacted Bolu on January 15, 2014 while Chukwuma was still alive but on the cusp of death in the SARS office. Bolu asked me to bring money so he could give my brother medical treatment,” Chinedu says. “That day, I gave Bolu 100,000 naira in his office inside SARS’ office, in the presence of one Inspector Edeh. Bolu then advised Edeh to bring a nurse to treat my brother and ordered me to pay the nurse as well. On January 16, 2014, I met the nurse, Maria Obasi, in the office of Inspector Edeh. She billed me 40,000 naira and I paid her.”.



The nurse promised to treat Chukwuma at the SARS office. Chinedu spoke with her for a day. Subsequently, she stopped picking his phone calls.&nbsp;



When Chukwuma was alive at SARS, they took him to his residence at railway quarters in GRA, Enugu. The officers searched his house, but nothing incriminating was found. His brother Chinedu drove there to witness the search as soon as he got the hint. “They pointed their gun at me and said that if I ever moved an inch from where I was standing, they would shoot me to death and nothing would happen,” Chinedu remembers. “Out of fear, I did not go close. The landlord of the house, his children and I watched as they turned the house upside down, yet nothing was found. They drove back to SARS, carrying Chukwuma, who was in handcuffs, in the boot of the vehicle,” Chinedu adds.



On January 20, 2014, Chinedu went to the SARS office alongside family lawyer Barrister Jerry Eneh, and found out that Chukwuma had died on January 18, 2014.&nbsp;&nbsp;



His corpse was dumped in the mortuary at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital on the outskirts of the city. The mortuary attendants said Chukwuma’s corpse was brought alongside another dead body on January 18, 2014 by one Cpl. Abugu Jonathan. It was written there in the mortuary record. Chinedu and his family tried everything to retrieve Chukwuma’s corpse for burial, all to no avail. This lasted for three years.&nbsp;



Chinedu reached out to the Civil Liberty Organization (CLO) which helped him write a petition on January 29, 2014 to the Commissioner of Police in Enugu, Ministry of Justice, National Human Rights Commission (NHRC), Amnesty International, Sahara Reporters, among others.&nbsp;



Based on the petition, the Commissioner of Police, Enugu Police Command, Mohammed Adamu Abubakar, invited the family for an interview on February 13, 2014. Those present in the interview were Chinedu, his uncle Phillip Uchegbu, Ben Motuanya, a human rights activist, Felix Bolu, Mohammed Zakari Yau, Abugu Jonathan, and all the DPOs in Enugu and other police officers. The family told the commissioner of police they wanted an autopsy, justice and then the release of Chukwuma’s corpse so they could bury him.&nbsp;



The commissioner then asked one Chief Superintendent of Police (CSP) Iwuanya, Officer in Charge (O.C) of X-squad unit to investigate the matter. Iwuanya later told Chinedu to give him 50,000 naira before he could commence investigation. Chinedu paid him 50,000 naira in the presence of his (Chinedu’s) colleagues Maxwell and Mary, who accompanied him to the office of CSP Iwuanya.&nbsp;&nbsp;



On February 14, 2014, Etah Etah, a police officer of X-squad unit, went to the mortuary, took photos of the corpse and brought back a report to his boss, CSP Iwuanya.&nbsp;



The Commissioner of Police told the family to unofficially retrieve Chukwuma’s corpse and bury him and forget about autopsy and justice. The family refused.&nbsp;



In February 2014, the NHRC began their investigation and discovered that the woman thought to be a nurse who took care of Chukwuma was indeed rather a laboratory technician. They also found out there was no robbery incident in Media Royal Hotel. The “nurse” was later sacked by the Chief Medical Director (CMD) of City Hospital, Enugu where she worked, after the CMD was informed about her role in the case. The staff of that hotel also testified to NHRC that no robbery happened on that day. In the course of their investigation, NHRC wrote to UNTH not to release the corpse to anybody, including the police, until they concluded their investigation.&nbsp;



Chinedu wrote other petitions to the Enugu State Police Command, Ministry Of Justice, Amnesty international, Sahara Reporters, Police Service Commission, President of Federal Republic of Nigeria, President of the Senate, IGP,&nbsp; Attorney General of Nigeria, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, and Department of Public Prosecution amongst others but “nothing came out of it”.



Barrister Sunday Egbo and Barrister Sunday Anyanwu went to Abuja on two different occasions to put more pressure on the police to act.&nbsp; After the lawyers went to the IG in Abuja, the IG ordered the Commissioner of Police in Enugu to release the vehicle of Chukwuma to the family, alongside his property; his laptop and other things. They released everything to the Chinedu, who has them till date. “There is no way you will seize the property of an armed robber and still release the same property to the family of the robber,” Chinedu reasons.



A three-man investigation team (led by one Sergeant Ede and comprising Abugu Jonathan and Cpl. Mike) was sent to Enugu to investigate the matter. That was after the Enugu Police Commissioner refused to carry out any investigation.&nbsp;



The team, whose accommodation was provided by Chinedu, gave Chinedu Chukwuma&#8217;s photographs they had taken at the mortuary. They also took written statements from the family and said they would go back and write a report on the matter and leave it to their superiors.&nbsp;



“I paid 450,000 naira to finance the autopsy that was conducted on July 17, 2015,” Chinedu reveals. “A doctor also came from Abuja and worked with the morbid anatomy unit at UNTH. It was the only proof I had on the case because the police were saying that my brother got sick and died. The autopsy result showed that he was shot at close range in front of the leg, on the shin. The bullet entered and came out.”



After the autopsy result had been concluded, the NHRC wrote to UNTH and demanded that the corpse be released for burial. Chukwuma was buried on December 30, 2015. He was given a “befitting” burial in his&nbsp; village in Umuozu Ezumoha in the Isiala Mbano Local Government Area, Imo State. Many people, including NHRC, attended the burial. NHRC addressed the people in the community, clearly informing them that Chukwuma was not an armed robber.



The NHRC wrote to the IG and Enugu state commissioner of police for a coroner inquest to be conducted on the matter. But, according to Chinedu, the police didn’t do that because they knew their officer, Felix Bolu, would be found culpable. “The police continue to shield him from coming to answer for what he did,” Chinedu says.



“There is no man on earth that can stand and say that Chukwuma was an armed robber,” Chinedu adds, “except the police who did not know him and do not even know where he was born, how he grew up and the kind of friends he kept around him. He was killed with impunity.”



Chinedu claims Officer Bolu once told him that if he liked, he could go to heaven or hell and nothing would happen, as Chukwuma is not bigger than the many men they have killed. “They told me that they had wasted many and nothing happened,” Chinedu says.“They said I was lucky that they didn&#8217;t kill me.”&nbsp;



Within that period, Chinedu says he ran away from his home. “Throughout 2014 and 2015, I wasn&#8217;t sleeping in my house because the police wanted to silence me. Inspector Edeh warned that if I didn’t drop the case he would find me and assassinate me. He said I wasn’t any bigger than those they have done such things to in the past. He said they have seen all my petitions and that nobody will attend to them. He said that many of such petitions are uselessly lying there, unattended to, in their office, and that my own would not be different.”&nbsp;



In 2016, the family went to the Federal high court to obtain an order of Mandamus against the killers of Chukwuma. The judge allowed them to go through the process but refused to give them the order.&nbsp;



In October last year, a Judicial Panel was set up to hear cases of police brutality in Enugu. Chinedu submitted a petition to the panel on November 11 2020, which was recorded as “memo no. 7.” “They looked at my petition and said I didn’t write it well,” he says. “They advised me to look for a lawyer who I later engaged to rewrite the petition. I submitted it again on February 12, 2021. They recorded it as “memo no. 135, and was scheduled for hearing on 23 March 2021.” The panel asked the family to serve a summons to the officers who killed Chukwuma, but the family has not been able to do that yet.



“It is unfortunate because there is no way the police can deny that they killed Chukwuma,” Chinedu says. “Every evidence is on ground, all against them.”

The Cost of Mediation

Wrongly assumed to be an armed robber, Olusegun Adesanya Openiyi was brutally gunned down by a SARS operative 14 years ago. With pain that is yet to heal, his father and widow remember him.



When Tolulope married her husband, it was the happiest moment of her life. She was excited to be on the journey of forever with her best friend.



But her joy was short-lived.



Her husband, Olusegun Adesanya Openiyi, was shot and killed by men of the now-defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) unit of the Nigeria Police.



Tolulope’s life derailed when she heard about her husband’s death. What was she to do with a two-month-old baby and another two-year-old child? How was she to live without her companion, friend and partner? This new reality almost destroyed her.



“The pain was too much to bear,” she says. “I was 31 years old, and was early in my marriage, which was then just two years and two months old.”



Her husband, Olusegun, was killed on his way to work on August 20, 2007. 14 years on, Tolulope’s grief remains raw. She still cries whenever her husband’s name is mentioned.&nbsp;



“He was a caring father,” she says fondly, “a caring husband, a lovely brother and a good son,”&nbsp;



Olusegun, who was 34, died of multiple gunshot wounds. As his widow remembers, he was killed at the entrance of the University of Lagos, where he was going for a product activation. He worked with the defunct Econet telecommunication &#8211; now Airtel.&nbsp;



“They killed my son,” says Micheal Adebola Openiyi, Olusegun’s father. “SARS killed my son.”&nbsp;



The senior Openiyi is 71 and has a face that carries the weight of his life’s experiences. He is a retired soldier.&nbsp;



“I would not have been suffering like this if he were alive,” he says. “He was the breadwinner.”



The senior Openiyi remembers the day he was told his son had been gunned down. The DPO of Sabo Police Station, Samuel Olukayode, broke the news to him.&nbsp;



Olusegun had been shot by a policeman, whose name the DPO gave as Sergeant Jide Akintola. Akintola had apparently mistaken Olusegun for an armed robber.



“They shot his tyre first,” the senior Openiyi remembers. “They opened the door of his Hilux van and shot him twice at the right-hand side of his chest.”



“The DPO told us to go and see the corpse of my late son at Lagos General Hospital mortuary. When I got there, I was told there was no Olusegun Openiyi in the morgue, but that the police from Sabo Station had brought a corpse that had been tagged as unknown.”



When they brought out the corpse, the senior Openiyi recognized it. It was his son.



He wrote multiple letters to the Nigerian Police Force, seeking justice but got no response. The lead counsel representing the force at the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Enquiry claimed he got no response because it was not the police who killed Olusegun.&nbsp;



“I put it to you that the IGP did not respond to your letter because it was not the police who killed your son,” the police lawyer said.



But Openiyi Snr. disagrees.



“The police killed my son!” he insists.

Innocent Blood

After law enforcement officers arrested Augustine Ugwu, they shot and killed him without a stated reason. Then they buried him behind their office.



Of the five children his parents had, the late Augustine Ugwu had been the brightest.&nbsp;



Augustine was 27 and in his final year at the university when the coronavirus pandemic brought the world to a standstill. He left the University of Nsukka, where he was studying to be a lawyer, and returned to his home also in Nsukka.&nbsp;



One evening, on April 23, 2020, Augustine met with friends at a shop in Odobido Street to share a drink. They were having a good time until a group of men, who identified themselves as members of the Anti-Cult police unit, Nsukka, entered the place in a Toyota Sienna minivan. The men wielded guns. They told Augustine he was under arrest. When the shop owner, Emeka Ogbu, tried to intervene, the men pointed their guns at him and told him to mind his business.



The Anti-Cult unit of the police in Nsukka is notorious for extrajudicial killings and extortion.



Augustine, despite not being told why he was arrested, agreed to follow the police. On the way to the parked vehicle, one of the officers, Oliver Ozeoko, unprovoked, shot Augustine in the leg. They bundled him into the car and drove off.



Some eyewitnesses followed the car to the Anti-Cult group’s office. There, the Commanding Officer of the group, DSP Ochin Nnamdi, on sighting the crowd that had followed his officers and Augustine, chased everybody away from his office, including lawyers who had come to bail some suspects in the group’s custody. It was reported that DSP Ochin Nnamdi, offering no reason to Augustine for his arrest, shot and killed him.&nbsp;



Augustine’s father, Andy Ugwu, a retired police officer, was in Benue State when his son was killed. The next day, April 24, his family asked a close friend of his, also a retired police officer, to tell him the bad news. The news crushed Andy. He returned to Nsukka and went to the office of the Anti-Cult group. There, DSP Ochin Nnamdi denied that Augustine had been brought into their station.&nbsp;



Andy met Emeka Ogbu, the shop owner, who told him everything that had happened at his (Mr Ogbu’s) shop on the night Augustine was arrested. Andy convinced Mr Ogbu to follow him to the police station to write a statement so that investigations could commence on his son&#8217;s disappearance.&nbsp;



But Andy soon noticed that justice was a stressful pursuit.&nbsp;



Andy reached out to the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Mohammed Adamu, who dispatched his detectives from the police headquarters at Abuja. The detectives arrived in Nsukka on June 22, 2020. Through the detectives’ investigations, it was revealed that members of the Anti-Cult group had buried young Augustine’s corpse behind their office.&nbsp;



Later, Augustine’s corpse was exhumed and transferred to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Ituku-Ozalla, Enugu State. Andy claims his son told him in a dream not to worry, that his blood would avenge his death.&nbsp;



The murderous officers were arrested in February 2021 after months of petitioning, and the Ugwu family hopes to get justice for Augustine’s murder.



“When it happened, human rights organizations, including Amnesty International [and the] president of the Law Students’ Association of Nigeria [Emmanuel Nwobodo] all waded into the case,” Andy says.



Following a letter by Andy to&nbsp; the Nigeria Police Force Criminal Investigation Department (FCID) in Abuja who sent down three detectives to Enugu to facilitate the release of Augustine&#8217;s remains from the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital, (UNTH.)



On the 3rd of March 2021, Augustine Ugwu’s remains were finally released to the family.&nbsp;



Andy reveals that both members of Nsukka’s Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) and the Anti-Cult group had arrested Emeka Ogbu, the shop owner and key witness of the incident that led to Augustine’s murder. Both parties had threatened to kill Mr Ogbu in a bid to cover up the case. It took the concerted effort of Andy and his lawyer to secure Mr Ogbu’s release from their custody.



The Anti-Cult group claims the late Augustine was a wanted cultist, but Andy argues that even if his son was indeed a cultist as claimed, which he wasn’t, the right procedure was to have charged him to court, not to kill him in cold blood.



Augustine was buried on March 29, 2021.



Andy says his son’s death has left the entire family &#8211; his wife and children &#8211; shaken.&nbsp;



“Since he [Augustine] was killed, I have not been myself,” Andy Ugwu says, broken.

In Cold Blood

Solomon Yellowe stepped out of his university hostel one night to withdraw money from the ATM. He was never seen again.



Just like his 81-year-old father Daodu, Solomon Yellowe loved singing in church. Solomon, the last of seven children, often went with his father to choir rehearsals at their Anglican church, stopping only when he got admission to study Religious and Cultural Studies at the University of Port Harcourt.



On March 13, 2019, 27-year-old Solomon, now a final year student, left his hostel in the Choba campus of the university to his department to write a test. He was seen on campus by his friends during this time. He later returned to his hostel.&nbsp;



That night, he left his hostel again to withdraw money from an ATM outside of the campus.&nbsp;



This time, Solomon did not return.



Noticing his strange disappearance, concerned family and friends tried to reach Solomon via phone. The calls went through without an answer. The next morning, a stranger picked up and said Solomon had given him the phone to charge.



Friends and family would continue waiting for Solomon, calling him, throughout the 14th and 15th of March, but he neither came back nor answered his phone. It was becoming clear that something was amiss, prompting a search.



On March 18, Solomon’s family began visiting police stations in Port Harcourt. His sister, legal practitioner Anna West, went to the office of the Special Anti-robbery Squad (SARS) in Rukpokwu, on the outskirts of Port Harcourt, in search of her brother, and was told Solomon was neither arrested nor in their custody.



Anna filed a missing person report at the police station and published it in the newspapers, on television, and on social media.&nbsp;



For eight weeks, the search for Solomon continued, until the family got a tip-off on April 25. The tip-off was from a detainee in a Port Harcourt prison, where Solomon’s girlfriend had visited as part of her search.



The detainee told Solomon’s girlfriend that Solomon had been killed by SARS, and urged her to search the mortuaries in the city as it was very likely she could find Solomon’s remains.



On April 26, the family visited the University of Port Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) mortuary and found Solomon’s name on the register. The information contained in the register revealed his corpse had been deposited on March 14 by a SARS officer named Sunday Samuel.



Anna West returned to the SARS station that had previously denied arresting her brother for answers. The officers there now accused Solomon of being an armed robber who had been involved in some robbery operations in the state.



Anna launched a formal investigation, petitioning the Commissioner of Police, who charged the Rivers State Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to investigate the murder.&nbsp;



As part of the investigation, an autopsy was carried out. The result revealed Solomon had died from brain swelling, and that he had no gunshot wounds, only defensive wounds on his forearms as a result of torture.



“My brother had no previous health condition and no criminal records,” Anna says. “How come just a few hours into being in custody he slumped and died, as the police claimed?”&nbsp;



Anna adds that she applied for the release of the investigation report by the State CID, which has refused to release the report to date.



The officers accused of Solomon’s murder were later arrested. Anna wrote a statement, and the officers involved also gave their statement, after which they were released on bail. They were later rearrested, and re-released by the sitting Commissioner of Police, Friday Eboka, on administrative bail.



The case slacked in action and accountability until October 22, 2020, when the governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, in response to the nationwide #EndSARS protest, inaugurated the #EndSARS Judicial Panel of Inquiry.



Anna and her father Daodu testified before the panel. The accused officers testified too, claiming Solomon had been a criminal.



The family now waits for the decision of the panel. Although Rivers State&#8217;s panel of inquiry submitted their report in August 2021, no news has been heard at the time of publishing this story.



Anna says she fell into depression after losing her brother two years ago. She calls Solomon’s demise “the worst experience” of her life.&nbsp;



“The damage done to my family is irreparable,” she says, in tears. “Life has not been normal but we are trying to pick ourselves up. We are healing as a family but it still hurts and it will hurt forever.”



Anna wants every officer found to be involved in the kidnap, torture, and murder of her brother tried and prosecuted.



Martha Chindah, one of Solomon’s other sisters, describes her brother as a “kind and loving young man.”



“Solomon was taken away from us in his prime,” Martha laments.&nbsp;



“He was young and had a promising future. It is still something I can’t believe. For me, my siblings, and my father, it is something we will have to live with for the rest of our lives, knowing our sibling has just been taken away by SARS.”



For Solomon&#8217;s aged father Daodu, the pain of losing his last-born, the one who followed in his footsteps, is unimaginable.



“My father is in deep sorrow,” Martha says.&nbsp;



“Words cannot describe [how he feels]. It is a terrible feeling to lose a child.”

The Slaying of Solomon

Dominic Onyeukwu managed to save his unborn son’s life during a riot. 20 years on, he could not prevent his son from being killed by SARS.



When the Kaduna Riot erupted in February 2000, the late Chibuike Ikeagwuchi was still in his mother’s womb. The riot, which led to over 200 deaths and many properties destroyed, later extended to Kano, where Chibuike’s parents lived at the time.



As Chibuike’s mother, Agnes’, due date drew nearer, the riot had intensified. Chibuike’s father, Dominic, decided to prioritize the safety of his wife and family by evacuating them from Kano.&nbsp;



One night in March 2000, Dominic managed to get his plan of escape in motion. But there was a problem. When he and his family arrived at the Sabon Gari Park, the last bus of the F.G. Onyenwe Transport Company to Owerri was almost full, unable to accommodate all six family members.&nbsp;



Dominic decided to put his pregnant wife and four children on the bus so he could stay behind and join them later. He wanted to, as he recalls, “allow my wife and children to arrive home safely without any pressure on the pregnancy.”



His family did arrive safely, and so did he, a month and two weeks later.&nbsp; The family had relocated to their hometown at Oboukwu Obizi in the Ezinihitte local government area of Imo State. There, Chibuike Ikeagwuchi was safely delivered.



“I avoided every trouble. I dogged every bullet,” Dominic remembers. “I did everything I could to make sure that the child was safe and secure.”



But two decades later, Dominic would not be in the position to protect his son, who was murdered in cold blood.&nbsp;



It was the afternoon of September 19, 2020. when an officer named Isaiah Bene, attached to the Nigerian Mobile Police Force (MOPOL) at the Elelenwo area of the Obio/Akpor local government in Port Harcourt, the capital of Rivers State, killed Chibuike, who had turned 20 just months before.



Chibuike and his friend, identified as Reuben, were reportedly walking along the road when they saw operatives of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), a unit of the Nigerian Police Force. Having previously heard and seen atrocities committed by the unit, the two friends started running in fear. The officers chased after them and, when they could not keep up, raised a false alarm with shouts of “thieves! thieves!”&nbsp;



To avoid being killed, Chibuike and Reuben eventually stopped to explain themselves to the SARS officers, who were still running towards them. During their short wait for the SARS officers to catch up to them, the duo was approached by MOPOL officer Bene, who was stationed in Elelewon.&nbsp;



Reuben recalls emptying the bag he was carrying when he heard a gunshot behind him. Chibuike had been shot in the back by Bene and had fallen face down on the ground. The incident was videoed by eyewitnesses and posted on social media.



When the SARS operatives finally arrived at the scene, they handcuffed Reuben. At that time, Chibuike was still breathing, but the SARS operatives refused to take him to the hospital. Rather, they put him on the floor of a tricycle where he breathed his last breath around 3:00 pm.



While Reuben was taken to the police station, Chibuike was taken to the University of Port Harcourt (UPTH) mortuary.



Dominic heard about Chibuike’s shooting from his (Dominic’s) eldest son, Michael. When he heard, he went to the Elelewon police station, where he requested to see his son, but was informed Chibuike was not in their custody.



He then received a phone call from Reuben’s mother, who told him not to leave the police station. When Reuben’s mother arrived at the station, they were allowed to see Reuben, who told them Chibuike had been killed and taken to the mortuary by the SARS operatives. Dominic slumped.



“I did not know when I fell,” he says.&nbsp;



He was shocked but also angry that his son had not only been shot, but taken to the mortuary without his consent. “They allowed my boy to die slowly,” he says.



When Dominic got to the UPTH mortuary that evening, the mortuary attendants did not doubt his claim of being the father of the deceased, because of the striking resemblance.



By the time I saw his body, he was very dark,” Dominic remembers.&nbsp;



The SARS operatives had apparently dumped Chibuike’s corpse and registered him under the name Daniel Anambra, a 30-year-old accident victim.



Dominic took his son’s corpse and travelled to their hometown, where he ensured Chibuike was buried in the family compound on December 21, 2020.



“The boy was a son I did not know I would lose like that,” the 69-year-old Dominic laments. “He was not a cultist &#8211; it was proven beyond reasonable doubt. Throughout the time of his death till now, I never saw any group come to say he was their member.”



Dominic describes his late son, who was his fifth and last child, as a potential music superstar who went by the stage name Sleek. Chibuike, Dominic reveals, was in a group that already had an album to their credit.



In 2020, Chibuike was admitted to study civil engineering at the Federal University of Owerri (FUTO), but could not attend because of complications caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.&nbsp;



In addition to being an artist, he also installed aluminium windows and roofs.



On October 27, 2020, Dominic instituted two separate cases &#8211; criminal and human rights &#8211; against the Rivers State Command of the Nigerian Police Force in the Rivers State High Court. The human rights case was speedily carried out and on November 27, 2020, Dominic was awarded the sum of 50 million naira for damages. The criminal case was adjourned to April 14, 2021, while officer Bene was remanded in prison.



Chibuike’s mother, Agnes, cries as she reflects on her son’s life. “Life has never been the same,” she says, sobbing. “I keep calling his number. I was there when they were burying him but I still call his number [to see] whether he would answer me.”



“Though I have other children, the departure of that boy seems as if 20 people left my house,” she adds.



Dominic, meanwhile, says the loss of his son has shattered him, almost driving him to insanity. “His loss disorganized me,” he explains. “Since his loss, I’ve become disoriented.”

Cold World

Until Jimoh Isiaq was killed by the police at a peaceful #ENDSARS demonstration, he had his whole life ahead of him, with a goal to change his family’s fortunes.



Jimoh Isiaq, 21, who died three days after being shot by the members of the Nigeria Police Force on October 10 2020 was his family’s hope for a better future.&nbsp;



His mother, Ramota Isiaq, says that Jimoh, six days before his death, had promised to “end the poverty”&nbsp; in their family.&nbsp;



Jimoh was one of those shot in Ogbomoso, in the Southwestern Nigerian state of Oyo on October 10, 2020, when police clamped down on peaceful #EndSARS protesters. He died three hours later from severe haemorrhaging after being shot three times in his chest.&nbsp; At one of the hospitals, his family was asked to get a police report before the bullets could be removed.&nbsp;



Jimoh was the joy of his father and the hope of a better future for his mother.&nbsp;



“Those who killed my son did not allow him to fulfil any of his promises to me,” she sobs.



Jimoh was a happy young man who enjoyed the attention of his aged parents. As the last child, he was pampered by his parents, who saw him as the fruit of their old age.&nbsp;



“He really loved us,” his father says. “His death is a big loss for me. I did not know this was how things would end for him. He would give me money every time I didn’t have it despite him only being an apprentice. His death is an incomprehensible loss.”



Jimoh extended the same love he shared with his parents to friends and neighbours. The Imam of the local mosque where Jimoh worshipped was distraught after hearing of his death.&nbsp;



Jimoh had recently repaired bad electrical bulbs in the mosque without charging any fees, one of many acts of service and generosity not only towards the mosque but towards his close-knit community at large.&nbsp;



“Everyone in the community loved him. He loved to greet people and was warm towards children, who would rush towards him all the time because he bought them things,¨ Ramota recalls.



Adio Mayowa, one of Jimoh’s childhood friends says there are places in the community he is no longer able to visit because it reminds him of his late friend. He says they were inseparable.



Jimoh left behind a two-year-old daughter, Nofisat &#8211; birthed by his childhood girlfriend.&nbsp;



“When the girl came to tell me she was pregnant for him, he wanted to deny it, but I told him I had seen them together a number of times,¨ recalls Ramota Isiaq.&nbsp;



“It was a good thing I accepted the pregnancy. What would have been left of my child now? That child is what I have left of my son.”



Jimoh was not the only young life lost in Ogbomoso at the hands of the police on October 10, 2020.&nbsp;



19-year-old Ibrahim Ganiyu, was shot and died three days later at the same Bowen University Teaching Hospital.&nbsp;



The Adeoye family also lost a beloved husband, and twin brother, Taiwo Adeoye.&nbsp;



One year later, all three families continue to seek justice, and the police continue to deny any involvement.

Death at a Demonstration

In December 2019, Owen Chikachukwu was arrested and taken into custody &#8211; and has not been seen since. Answers from law enforcement officials are not forthcoming, while the officer who led Owen’s arrest has advised his family to “forget about him.”



When 27-year-old Owen Chikachukwu, who went missing two years ago and is feared dead, completed the Community Secondary School, Agbani in the southeastern Nigerian state of Enugu, he wanted to attend university. But he could not. He was poor and no one could sponsor him.



So he got a motorcycle and became an okada man, carrying passengers from place to place, earning his keep.



Owen’s mother, Nkechi Umeh, gave birth to him out of wedlock. She is now married and is a mother of five girls. His guardian, Echela Awah Ikechukwu, describes him as a kindhearted, considerate and hardworking young man.&nbsp;



Owen was a native of the southeastern town of Amuri, Agbani in Nkanu West Local Government Area of Enugu State. In April and June of 2019, there were violent cult clashes, resulting in several deaths. A few months later the Anti-Cult Squad of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) went into the streets and began an arrest spree, arresting anyone they felt was a cultist.&nbsp;



On December 1, 2019, Owen and his friend, Izuchukwu Ani, were at the bar of a hotel, sharing drinks, when officers of the Anti-Cult Squad, led by a certain Inspector Jude, came into the bar and arrested them. They were taken to the police station, where the unit commander, Ekeleme, put only Izuchukwu in a cell. According to Izuchukwu who was eventually taken to court and granted bail, that was the last time he saw Owen.



When Owen’s family found out he had been arrested, they went in search of him at the police station. The Anti-Cult Squad, to their surprise, denied arresting or even meeting Owen.



Later, Izuchukwu told Owen’s family that while he (Izuchukwu) was in the cell, he asked Inspector Jude about Owen. Inspector Jude told him to “forget about him.” Izuchukwu said he thought Inspector Jude was joking.



The inmates, Izuchukwu remembers, told him that if he did not see or hear from Owen again, it probably meant that he had been killed or transferred to another police station. An inmate who had been in the same cell with Owen told Izuchukwu that the officers had tortured Owen to death.



On the advice of Larry Oguego, the National Coordinator of Human Rights Volunteer Corps (HRVC), whom Owen’s guardian Mr Ikechukwu contacted for help concerning the case, Owen’s mother went to the police station and demanded to see the list of those who had been arrested in December 2019, hoping to track down her son. Inspector Jude threatened to arrest her, before kicking her out of the station. He maintained that the police knew nothing about Owen’s disappearance.&nbsp;



Owen’s mother is now a broken woman.



“I can’t get myself to believe that my son is no more,” she says.&nbsp;



She cries when she remembers her son, whom she describes as a caring and respectful young man. The day before Owen was arrested he had helped her to fetch water and told her of his intention to quit the Okada job so he could return to school.&nbsp;



Owen’s stepfather, Anayo Umeh, shares the same sentiment about his step-son being respectful, hardworking, and obedient.&nbsp;



Mr Umeh says he had advised Mr Chikachukwu to stay away from town when the cult clashes started.&nbsp;



Owen’s disappearance and continued absence has really disturbed Mr Umeh’s household. “We have not found him and it is really affecting us, his mother especially,” he says.



In October 2020, in response to the nationwide #ENDSARS protests, Governor Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu State inaugurated a panel that seeks to look into cases of extrajudicial killings and police brutality. Owen’s family submitted their petition, and their case was adjourned to January 2021. After the panel rounded up hearings, they told the family that they had made recommendations to the state government. Owen’s family is yet to hear from the state government.



Mr Ikechukwu, Owen’s guardian, says despite the advice from family and friends to discontinue his search for the truth concerning the disappearance, he will not stop doing all he can to find answers. He claims to have had a dream in which Owen told him not to stop fighting. This, he says, reinforces his resolve &#8211; even after over a year of dead ends.&nbsp;



Mr Ikechukwu believes Owen did not deserve the treatment he got, even if he was indeed a cultist, as alleged. He says the police should have given him a fair chance to defend himself in the court of law.



“What I need is justice. If they [the police] have killed him, they should provide us with his body so we [can] bury him,” he says. “If they have not killed him, they should let us know where he is being kept.”

Into Thin Air

Eight days after getting shot by police officers, Christian Ugwuja’s corpse was found in a valley, where it had been dumped.



Christian Ugwuja was doing well in life. He had a business and a young family, both of which were blossoming.



But all of that promise would be rudely interrupted in the midst of the EndSARS protests in October 2020.



Kingsley Chibuzor Ugwuja is the deceased’s older brother. He hails from Opi in the Nsukka Local Government Area of Enugu State. He lives in Uwani in Enugu city, where he operates a business centre.



On the 23rd of October 2020, Christian, the second born amongst five siblings, left his house to join the EndSARS protest. His wife, whom he had married in October 2019, and his little daughter, who was barely two months old, were at home when he left.



Wielding placards and banners, the peaceful protesters marched to the Uwani Police Station in Enugu. While in front of the station, the police suddenly opened fire on them. Unfortunately, Christian was one of those who were shot. He took a bullet to his leg. The police then took him away in the company of other protesters.



Kingsley heard of what had happened and started looking for his brother. He went to the Enugu State Police Command, Uwani police station, where the shooting had taken place. He also visited the police station at Garki. But at both places, there was no information about Christian’s whereabouts.&nbsp;



Family and friends joined, and the search for Chrisitian continued. On October 25, 2020, five days after he got shot and went missing, the family hired a lawyer to help find him. The lawyer went back to the Police Command in Uwani, and even to the SARS unit at New Market, Enugu. There were still no traces of Christian.



The search for Christian continued without any positive outcome. But this was until the morning of October 28, 2020, around 9am.&nbsp;



Kingsley was getting ready to leave his apartment to continue the search when he got a call from a friend. His friend said he had heard there were some corpses that had been dumped at various locations: at Milliken Hill, at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital Enugu, and at the road leading to the Adoration Ground in Emene within the city.&nbsp;



Kingsley’s heart skipped a beat, then began to race. Alongside his lawyer and some friends, he decided to check out the places the caller had referred him to. When they got to the top of Milliken Hill, they saw four corpses from afar in the valley. They decided to go down and check.&nbsp;



In the valley, Kingsley identified a familiar body amongst the corpses. Although the body had decayed, with ants and flies parading around it, he could still tell it was his beloved brother Christian.&nbsp;



It took them four long hours to bring Christian’s remains out of the pit. It was around 8pm in the night when they were able to do so. They bought formalin to subdue the odour and scare ants away.&nbsp;



They brought out Christian’s remains alongside two other corpses. Later, two people came and identified those corpses. The corpses seemed to have received gunshots to their heads, palms and armpits. Kingsley and his team learnt that one of the corpses was from the nearby city of Abakaliki, capital of Ebonyi State, while the other was from Akpugo town in Enugu.&nbsp;



Because of the state of Christian’s remains, Kinglsey and his team couldn’t afford to take it home and bury it, so they decided to have it transported to the mortuary for treatment.&nbsp;



It was hard for them to find an ambulance to convey the body, as it had decayed, but they finally managed to reach the mortuary at the National Orthopaedic Hospital in Enugu. There, the mortician received and treated Christian’s corpse. Kingsley and his team planned to take Christian’s corpse to the village the next morning to begin plans for a burial.



On October 29, 2020, just when the burial plans for Chrisitian got underway, the family heard that the Enugu State government had constituted a judicial panel of inquiry to look into police brutality and killings.&nbsp;



In December 2020, the family’s lawyer filed a petition with the judicial panel. The panel decided and made recommendations for the family’s compensation, but the family is yet to hear from the state government.



Meanwhile, Christian’s corpse was finally buried on November 7, 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“I miss Christian so much.,” Kingsley says. “He was a great brother, and my closest ally. Because we were almost age-mates &#8211; I am 36 and he was 34 &#8211; we were inseparable while growing up.&nbsp;



He even lived with me for 15 years before he went on to have a family of his own. While living together, we never had an issue. We understood each other and always discussed things together &#8211; including plans on how to take care of our family and solve family-related problems.”



“It’s so unfair how he died,” Kingsley continues. “He had so many hopes and dreams. He had acquired a piece of land in our village and had started moulding blocks to build a house. His marriage was barely a year old, and his daughter only turned two months old on the day we found him in the valley.”&nbsp;



“Other members of our family, as well as myself, have been supporting Christian’s family, and making sure they are well taken care of. As for the tender little girl, we are making sure that she grows up never feeling that she did not have a father.”



For Kingsley, the Nigeria Police Force has serious issues to fix.&nbsp;



“It is very unfortunate that the police who are supposed to protect us are the ones killing us. Ironically, the protest was in favour of the police in a way,&nbsp; because one of the protesters’ demands was police welfare &#8211; their salary structure, the schools their kids attend and so on.&nbsp;



“If you have a duty to protect people, protect them. I don&#8217;t know why they had to shoot at people that way. The brutality is too much.”



He continues, passionately: “Imagine a policeman arresting someone and beating him without asking questions. Imagine a policeman shooting someone and dumping their body in a valley. It’s unthinkable. If this country continues this way, the common man has no hope. We just can’t afford to continue this way. Otherwise, one day, we will wake up to find out everyone has been killed.”

A Victim in a Valley

For over 30 years, Mosunmola Labinjo served Nigeria as an administrative staff at the Ministry of Defence in Ibadan, Oyo state in her active years.



After retirement in 2009, the single mother of four couldn’t afford to rent a flat and struggled to cater for her children who were in their early and mid-20s at that time.&nbsp;



“I took the job as a housekeeper with a professor inside Bodija Housing Estate [in Ibadan, capital of Oyo state]&nbsp; so that my children would not suffer,” she said.



Her voice was extremely low, almost turning into a whisper.&nbsp;



The death of her son, Olumide, who was illegally detained for almost two months and later died at home, still rankles her.&nbsp;



Olumide’s illegal arrest and torture



Near Professor Kale’s house where the mother worked and lived with the other siblings,&nbsp; Olumide secured a job at a car wash. He was hoping to go abroad to study, his mother says.&nbsp;&nbsp;



In the morning, on March 23, 2019, police officers from Bodija Housing Police Station arrested Olumide where he was buying a cigarette.&nbsp;



It is not illegal to buy or smoke cigarettes in Nigeria and the police did not disclose any reasons for his arrest until his family arrived at Bodija Housing Police station where he was first detained that day.&nbsp;



There, the police, at first, tried to persuade the Olumide to write an incriminating statement but he refused. The police later told Olumide’s mother the son was among the robbers that raided the neighbourhood around 7 pm the previous night.&nbsp;



Mosunmola explained that Professor Kale also followed her to the station and testified that at the time the police accuse Olumide of having committed a robbery, Olumide was at the professor’s house turning on the generator.



“They told the Professor he was only speaking grammar.”



On the second day after his arrest, Olumide was transferred to the SARS office at the Dugbe, in Ibadan, where he was tortured badly and repeatedly pressured to accept the allegations against him. But Olumide was resolute and unswerving. Olumide suspected that the police wanted to exchange him for another crime suspect.



If the police truly had a case against the detainee, the family would not be asked to bring money to close a non-existent case.&nbsp; “They asked me to bring N500,000 so that my son can be free”, Adebisi said.&nbsp;



“Where do I get such money? I managed to raise about N100,000. They collected that and kept asking for more,” she added.&nbsp;



In June 2009, Mosunmola finally encountered someone who encouraged her to approach the Oyo state ministry of justice to seek pro-bono legal assistance.



Flickers of Hope



At the justice ministry,&nbsp; Mrs Bisi Ogunkanmi (now a Chief Magistrate) offered her all the help she wanted.



She arraigned the case against Olumide before the Ibadan Magistrate court in June 2009. The case moved on to the High Court in Ibadan where it was eventually struck out in August 2009.&nbsp;



The End for an Ambitious Nigerian



“Mummy, will you look for a job for me if I leave this place,” Olumide often asked the mother. Brimming with hope, the mother too would answer in the affirmative.



Although Olumide was later released from detention on August 27, 2009, the pain and brutality he endured would come to haunt him afterwards.



Immediately after the release, Olumide began to suffer severe backache and could no longer stand erect, according to Mosunmola. The mother took him to the University College Hospital in Ibadan for about two months and resorted to self-care when money became an issue. “The stress was too much for my age,” she said.



Olumide died in Professor Kale’s house, where he lived with his family at that time, on March 12, 2010.&nbsp;



“He was a very ambitious, hardworking young man,” the mother said. “They (the police) killed my dear son and didn’t allow him to fulfil his destiny. They killed him and didn’t allow me to reap the fruit of my labour.”



Olumide was laid to rest on the land the mother bought at retirement at the Eleyele area of Ibadan.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, after 10 years of waiting for her gratuity, Olumide’s mother, Adebisi, received her gratuity in 2019.&nbsp;



She no longer had to do menial jobs. She now sells refined honey at one of the shops she built in front of her residence.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“I thank God that my son was not buried outside. He is resting in the house the children built for me and not somewhere I do not know,” she said.

The System Failed the Mother, Police ‘Killed’ the Son

Teenager Monday Desmart was wrongly accused of armed robbery and allegedly murdered by the police, leaving his small family heavily affected.



Around 5 a.m. on Friday, February 11, 2011, four members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) from Police Command Headquarters, Abakaliki, Ebonyi stormed a house.



The SARS officers startled the inhabitants with the way they broke in like armed robbers while the family slept. They had come to arrest a teenager named Monday Desmart.



The officers handcuffed the family and brought them all out of the house. Then they began to rummage through the room. They however did not find anything incriminating.&nbsp;



Alongside Monday, they took away his late father&#8217;s motorcycle. His father, John Desmart Onwe, a former school proprietor, died in 2010. He left behind his wife, and two sons: Monday and Junior Desmart Onwe.



When the SARS officers checked a list with names, they said Junior’s name was not included, and so they let him go. When he insisted he wanted to follow them to know why they had arrested his brother. They refused, and when he tried to follow them, one of them landed the head of his gun on Junior, hurting him badly. Junior and Monday’s mother began to cry.&nbsp;



Their mother reasoned later that since SARS was part of the police, it was best for her to go to the police headquarters in Abakaliki, Ebonyi state’s capital, to officially enquire about their reasons for arresting her son.&nbsp;



Upon reaching the Abakaliki headquarters, their mother found out that her son, Junior’s brother, Monday had been killed. &#8220;What did my son do?” she asked repeatedly. But nobody answered.



When she returned home, she broke the news to the family that the SARS officers had killed Monday. She also went ahead to inform the elders in their community. She later hired a lawyer who wrote a petition to the Ebonyi State Commissioner of police on May 14, 2011, requesting compensation, as well as the release of&nbsp; Monday’s corpse for burial. The commissioner however didn’t respond to any of the requests.&nbsp;



Pastor Shedrack Onwe, Monday’s uncle, has been the one seeking redress on behalf of the family. He has been the one supporting the family financially as well.&nbsp;



Monday, while he was alive, was the one who took care of his mum and brother, Junior. He even paid Junior’s secondary school fees, and his death meant his younger brother had to drop out at SS3 (Senior Secondary 3).&nbsp;



In December 2020, Monday’s mother died because of the shock caused by the loss of her son. You see, after Monday’s death, their mother was so overwhelmed by grief that she struggled to sleep.&nbsp;



She would usually come out of her room to swear painfully, saying, “Anybody who killed my son will never find peace!”&nbsp;



She continued doing that until she developed high blood pressure. Junior took her to several health facilities with the little money he made from selling phone accessories and repairing phones.



Junior used to reassure her that he would try to fill the gap left by Monday. He told her he would do anything that his late older brother couldn’t do for her. But his mother could not be consoled until&nbsp;she died. Just like that.&nbsp;



Monday was almost 19-years-old when he was killed. He was a bricklayer who used to work in Benin City, the capital of Edo State. He had only come back to the village, as he usually did, to join other young people to celebrate the Ofia-ode festival (Ofia-ode is a cultural festival that people of the Ntezi community celebrate once in a year. It usually takes place in either the third or last week of January. During the festival, all the five villages that make up the Ntezi community display different kinds of masquerades).&nbsp;



Monday’s wife has a daughter who is about 10-years-old now. She gave birth to the child around April 2011, two months after Monday was killed.&nbsp; She had Junior’s niece at the back in her father’s home, because the family did not have enough money for a hospital birth. Sometimes, Junior says, he visits the child and buys whatever little gift he can afford.



Junior remembers his late brother Monday as a funny person, who was kind, peaceful, and never had problems with people. This, he says, is why he refuses to accept the police’s claim that Monday was an armed robber.



An Uncle’s pain



Pastor Olung Shedrack Onwe, was Monday’s uncle.&nbsp;



He was on the other side of the highway, on his way to Enugu, when he saw Monday and one other person handcuffed inside a Hilux van. The pastor decided he would visit his late brother’s wife upon his return to know what happened.&nbsp;



But by 12 p.m that day, news filtered through radio and television stations in Ebonyi State, announcing that policemen had killed some armed robbers at an uncompleted building where they (the robbers) had been sharing their loot. The report said two robbers were killed during the exchange of gunfire and added that the other armed robbers escaped.&nbsp;



“Only God knows the spot they reached and killed both of the boys and then went ahead to tell radio stations a different story,” Pastor Olung says.



That same morning, when Monday’s mother got to the station, the boy was already dead with his father&#8217;s motorcycle by his side, as one of the exhibits the police claimed was stolen property they had retrieved from him.&nbsp;



Even when his mother brought the receipt of the motorcycle, the police only collected it from her and still insisted that that machine was stolen property. To date, the police have neither returned the receipt of the bike nor released the victim’s corpse for burial.



Pastor Olung recalls that the family waited for some time before they approached the police to release the corpse of the boy for them to bury, but they refused. That was what prompted the first petition that the family employed a lawyer to write to the Commissioner of Police on May 14, 2011. The Commissioner of Police did nothing.&nbsp;



“This young man was not given a fair hearing,” Pastor Olung says, continuing, “because even if he had stolen, for God&#8217;s sake, the law holds that somebody who commits a crime is still a suspect until he is actually proven guilty in a court.”



Their petition however did not yield a positive result because they had no money to pursue the matter in court.



The family again brought up the case again after the Judicial Panel of Inquiry set up after the #EndSARS protests in October 2020. Pastor Olung had heard on the news that there was a panel of inquiry established to inquire into police brutality and extrajudicial killings. He wrote a petition to the panel on December 5, 2020.&nbsp;



When the family appeared at the panel on March 9, 2021, they asked that the panel recommend that the government compensate Monday’s family.&nbsp;



“We are asking the government to rise up to the occasion and give justice to whom justice is due,” Pastor Olung says.



“We are demanding three things,” he continues, “that they give us a 50 million naira compensation; that they release Monday’s corpse for proper burial; and that the police return the motorcycle stolen from our house.”



As of the time of this publication, neither Monday’s corpse nor the motorcycle, or compensation have been released to the family of the deceased.&nbsp;



“We are still waiting for the government to contact us,” Pastor Olong says.&nbsp;



The pastor adds that the impact of Monday’s death in their community was enormous. Stating that Monday was well-loved in the community. And such, his death is not easily forgotten.



“They say that kolanut lasts long in the mouth of those that know the value of it, the same way pain and anguish lasts long in the heart of those that pass through it,” the pastor says.&nbsp;



Pastor Olung continues saying, “I want Monday to be remembered as a victim of circumstance. And again I want Monday to be remembered as a lamb that was used as a sacrifice to end incessant brutality in Nigeria. I want Monday’s death and the punishment that will be served to the police officers to serve as a deterrent to other erring officers.&nbsp;



If these things happen, I will be very grateful.”

Black Friday for Monday

On one sunny day, SARS officers stormed a neighbourhood in Ajegunle, Lagos. They were on a mission to arrest a suspect.&nbsp; Somehow, Eric Okwaji, a resident in the neighbourhood got caught up in the operations.&nbsp; Seven years later, Eric is yet to be found.



Eric Okwaji spotted a gold-painted Sienna car parked in front of his residence at Nosamu Street, Ajegunle Apapa, Lagos.&nbsp;



Eric, who shared his residence with some friends, asked for the car to be moved because it was blocking movement. Though the car was eventually moved, so was Eric’s &#8211; badly beaten and unconscious.&nbsp;



It was late morning on September 17, 2014.



The SARS operatives who parked the car were in Eric’s neighbourhood to make an arrest. Having ransacked the house at 39 Nosamu Street, which they believed was the family home of their target, known as ‘Popo’, they did not find Popo. He apparently did not even live there.



Frustrated by their failed arrest, hearing Eric ask about the car further annoyed them.&nbsp;



“Their next action was to vehemently descend on Eric with serious anger,” Bosah Emeka, a community activist, said in a letter sent to the Onikan office of the Assistant Inspector-General of Police.&nbsp;



The aggression the SARS operatives had reserved for the Popo arrest was poured out on poor Eric, who they beat to the point of unconsciousness.&nbsp;



Pleas by community residents for the police officers to exercise restraint were ignored. Eric’s battered body was then thrown into the back of the Sienna car, which sped off.&nbsp;



It’s been six years since the car disappeared into the distance.



Family and friends of Eric Okwaji, as well as residents of Ajegunle Apapa in Lagos, have since not seen or heard from the young man.



The search&nbsp;



One of the officers who participated in the violent incident gave his name as Sergeant Samuel C.Y. He left a mobile number, asking for any enquiries about the condition and whereabouts of Eric to be directed to him.&nbsp;



But each time a family member or neighbour called, he asked for money to be paid before he could give out any information.&nbsp;



“When we called him for the release of Eric, he demanded N400,000,” Lawrence Macaulay, Eric’s father, said. “We begged him but he did not listen.”&nbsp;



Once Mr Macaulay, a retired civil servant, realized he could not raise the bribe demanded, he set out on his own, visiting different police stations in search of his son. The Ajeromi Ifelodun Community Movement also sent out dispatches to different police units and NGOs asking for help to find Eric.



In one of such letters, addressed to Amnesty International, the association revealed they had sent search parties to Abuja “to no avail”.



While insisting on his demand for the N400,000 bribe, Sergeant Samuel evaded Eric’s family, preferring to connect on phone and not in person. “Anytime we wanted to meet him, he would say, ‘Come, but you will not meet me’,” Mr Macaulay recalled. “Anytime we got to a station we had been directed to, they would claim they did not know him; or that there was no Sergeant Samuel in that station.”



In a plan to track down the dubious sergeant, Emmanuella, Eric’s sister, connected with Sergeant Samuel via WhatsApp. Her good looks seemed to have caught the attention of the sergeant, who invited her for an evening hangout at a local bar. In their WhatsApp chats, Sergeant Samuel gave his name to Emmanuella as Stephen Bayo.



Even though this scheduled meeting provided a rare opportunity to meet Sergeant Samuel in person, Mr Macaulay discouraged the idea. He said he did not want his daughter, whom he describes as “beautiful”, to come into contact with a man who had been involved in the abduction of his son.



Besides, Mr Macaulay thought Sergeant Samuel’s Whatsapp profile photo, as well as the name Stephen Bayo &#8211; which he suspected could be Sergeant Samuel’s real name – were enough leads to go on in terms of getting to the bottom of the issue. “I thought it would help our case,” Mr Macaulay said.



But it didn’t. The sergeant continued to evade the family, keeping his identity a secret while still demanding the N400, 000 ransom.



A quick search on Truecaller, a caller identification app, shows the name attached to the number given by Sergeant Samuel as “IPO Tayo Sars”.



Indicted for robbery&nbsp;



Abba Kyari, the celebrity cop who now leads the Inspector General of Police&#8217;s Intelligence Response Team (IGP-IRT), was the Officer-in-Charge of SARS when 34-year old Eric was arrested.&nbsp;



Mr Macaulay, in the company of one Mr Fatoki, a lawyer from the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), made a complaint to Mr Kyari about the unlawful arrest of his son.&nbsp;



Mr Kyari admitted that Eric was in his custody, but claimed he had been arrested for highway robbery, as against the known fact of being beaten and abducted on Nosamu Street in Lagos.



Convinced that there had been a mix-up that could be resolved with some legal backing, Mr Macaulay and Mr Fatoki left hoping to return on a later date to secure Eric’s release.&nbsp;



But things didn’t quite work out that way. Mr Macaulay, whose pension earnings as a retired civil servant were irregular, could not meet the financial demands of his lawyer, Mr Fatoki. He had assumed that given the sensitive nature of the case, Mr Fatoki would consider helping him pro bono.&nbsp;



“We did not go back to Kyari because the NBA lawyer started asking for money,” Mr Macaulay recounted. “After I had given him N20,000, he took me to his chambers and asked that I pay more, but I did not have any money.”



On Thursday, November 6, 2014, The Nation newspaper published an article about two alleged armed robbers arrested by Abba Kayari’s SARS operatives. The men, identified as Olarenwaju Oladejo and Ibrahim Afolabi, both in their early 20s, confessed to armed robbery and indicted an “Eric Okowaji” and two others, who were reported “at large” at the time.&nbsp;



“My father died while he was working with the Ajeromi Local Government Area. I learnt panel beating but did not get enough money from it. Two of my friends, Eric (Okowaji) and Seyi, who is still at large, introduced me to the gang,” one of the suspects, Mr Oladejo, was quoted to have said in another publication by The Punch newspaper.&nbsp;



The photo of the “Eric Okowaji” in question was not attached to the publications by either The Nation or The Punch newspaper.



Could this Eric be the same “Eric Okwaji” who had been whisked away in that gold-painted Sienna car a few weeks earlier?



Mr Macaulay insists that the “Eric Okowaji” referred to by armed robbers could never be his son, Eric Okwaji, who he said was a decent man.



“Eric was a footballer, and also worked at Bayelsa Motor Park Boundary before he was taken away,” Mr Macaulay said.&nbsp;



It has been exactly six years and seven months since Eric was inexplicably brutalized and plucked away on the streets of Lagos.&nbsp;



Last October, as years of SARS-related brutality reached its peak, provoking protests nationwide and garnering global attention for Nigeria, the anguish of aggrieved families hit close to home. One of such families, Mr Macaulay and his household continue to live in perpetual anxiety, not knowing where their beloved Eric is, or even whether he is alive or not.



Under the pressure of the #ENDSARS protests, the President Muhammadu Buhari led administration disbanded the controversial SARS unit, but the scars of their atrocities remain, with many questions unanswered, many mysteries unsolved.&nbsp;



Abba Kyari, the senior police officer who was responsible for SARS operations in Lagos when Eric was taken by the unit’s officers six years ago, is still being pursued for answers.



Multiple calls to Mr Kyari’s phone number only get his voice mail. He also has not responded to text messages sent to the same number.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, Mr Macaulay has approached the Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuse and Other Matters to seek answers.&nbsp;



This is a developing story. Expect more revelations as we try to find Eric Okwaji.



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

Abba Kyari, Where is Eric Okwaji?

A policeman, for no reason, opened fire on Godwin Udoh´s innocent family, changing their lives forever



My family and I were returning home from church, when we encountered some policemen. It was nighttime, and the headlights of our Keke (tricycle motor) illuminated the officers, making them visible. They seemed to be discussing something.



As we drove nearer, one of them brought out a gun and tried to hit me with it. Alarmed, I parked the Keke and went over to meet them, just to make sure everything was okay. My wife followed. Neither I nor any member of my family have ever had problems with the police, so we did not have anything to fear or hide.&nbsp;



The police men started to ask us questions. Then, one of them demanded a 2000 naira bribe. I told them I did not have 2000 naira on me. I was on my way home from church &#8211; not work. And I was with my family &#8211; as they could see by the presence of my wife by me and my children in the Keke.



One of the officers, upon recognizing that my story checked out &#8211; that I was indeed innocently in the company of my family &#8211; asked me to go.&nbsp;



In the process of getting back into the Keke, however, I suddenly heard gunshots. It came from behind me, where we had met the officers.



In that split second, I discovered my jaw had burst open. I had been shot.&nbsp;



Confused and in severe pain, I instinctively held my jaw and mouth together to prevent the loss of my blood, which was by that time gushing out like a pipe faucet forced open.



Then, I heard shouts of ´Mummy is dying! Mummy is dying!´&nbsp;



My wife had been shot too, and she was bleeding even more seriously than I was, especially from her head.&nbsp;



She had sat back into our Keke and had been holding our baby when a bullet ripped through the back of the vehicle, ramming into her head and causing her to slump over the crying baby, who my daughter later picked up.



I later found out that the policeman who opened fire on us, unprovoked, was the same one who had earlier tried to hit me with a gun. I have still not understood why he fired so heartlessly at an unarmed family, when his colleague had asked us to drive on.



With my wife in a pool of blood, and my children wailing, I swallowed my own pain and tried to save my family by calling out for help. None of the cars passing by stopped to come to our aid, as they claimed they didn&#8217;t want to be involved with anything concerning the infamously brutal police.&nbsp;



One good and brave samaritan however, eventually stopped and had mercy on us. He was a bus driver, and with the help of another kind lady who was around, they helped carry us to the hospital.&nbsp;



We were unsuccessful with getting treatment at two hospitals, before finally ending up at Ikorodu General Hospital. There, we were asked to submit a police report before receiving medical attention.&nbsp;



We went to the Idimu Area Command to get a report, but we were told to go back to the hospital because our case was an emergency which did not require a report.&nbsp;



We told the police that we had already told the hospital staff &#8211; and indeed they (the hospital staff) themselves could see that we were an emergency case &#8211; yet they still insisted on us producing a report before they would treat us.&nbsp;



We went back to Ikorodu General Hospital with the instructions the Idimu Area M Command had given us, but the hospital staff were still adamant: no police report, no treatment.&nbsp;



The driver of the bus had to go back to the Area Command to try again for a police report. Fortunately, and finally, he was able to obtain one. The staff of Ikorodu Hospital had begun first aid treatment on us by the time the driver returned with the report.&nbsp;



We were later referred to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), but just when we were about to set off, more problems arose: Our good samaritan found out that his bus had run out of fuel. We decided to go back to the Area Command so they could help us with a vehicle to transport us to LUTH.



When we got to the Area Command, we met some top police officials who had just arrived there. They told us that they were coming from the Isheri Police Station, where the officers who had attacked us earlier were based. The police chiefs assured us that the officers had been arrested, and that the matter would be handled with the justice it deserved.&nbsp;



They then released a vehicle to convey us to LUTH. With the help of the officers, and CSO there, we were given urgent attention, with the police paying the bills our treatment.



While my jaw and right hand sustained damage that still gives me issues today, my wife however couldn&#8217;t live to tell her story.&nbsp;



I really wish she had sustained only injuries like I had, but it wasn to be. This innocent, loving woman was a mother to my children and I, and now she is no more &#8211; for reasons no one can still explain.



Losing the wife of my youth has been akin to losing my very life. I feel lost. I am not okay. I am in pain, physically and emotionally, and my children are out of school too.&nbsp;



My life has been turned upside down, and I have barely had help coming through for me. I am calling on all Nigerians, especially our President, His Excellency Muhammadu Buhari, the Governor of Lagos State, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, and the Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Gabriel Emmanuel, to come to my aid.



I pray people have compassion on my family, at least for the sake of my children, because I do not want this cruel tragedy to rob them of a good education. I do not want their future ruined because of this.



_______



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

Out of Nowhere

Ganiyu Ibrahim, highly regarded in school, was in the last year of his teens when bullets from security forces brought down the curtain on his promising, young life.



Ganiyu Ibrahim, 19, died from a gunshot wound sustained during the #EndSARS protest in Ogbomosho, Oyo State. Ganiyu was allegedly shot by members of the Nigeria Police Force. He died three days later at Bowen University Teaching Hospital, and was buried according to Islamic tradition on Tuesday, October 13. .



The killing of Ganiyu signaled a sudden end to a decent and meaningful life. Teachers and friends at Soun High School, an Arabic School where Ganiyu attended, say they will never forget the six years he shared with them. Ganiyu, they remember, was a model student, obedient and teachable.&nbsp;



“He was a very obedient student,” his class teacher, Alhaji Bello Hasmiyu, says.&nbsp;



While it is common to find high school students occasionally testing their schools’ rules and regulations, like those that choose to stay out of class beyond their lunch break and those who willfully absent themselves from class, Ganiyi, according to those who knew him in school, was different. He enjoyed playing football with his peers but would not stay a minute longer on the field once break was over.&nbsp;



“He would be the first person to leave the field and return to class,¨ Mr. Hasmiyu says.



Workers at a workshop where Ganiyu learnt how to sew also testify of him as a promising apprentice.



Alabi Mayowa, Ganiyu’s close friend, went to the hospital to check on his friend even though he had been told he had died days ago. He still had not come to terms with the departure of his dear friend. Mayowa had sworn to always be there for Ganiyu, but the former had been away in a different town when the latter was gunned down.&nbsp;



“I could not believe it,” Mr. Mayowa says. “Ibrahim was a kind person. One time, my parents could not give me my feeding allowance so I went to school without food. During breaktime, I was hungry. I told Ibrahim. He told me he did not have money too but he went to borrow money from someone else and gave it to me to buy food. That really touched my heart and I will never forget.”



Months have passed since Ganiyu was buried, but his cousin, Micheal Aremu, says he still feels his presence in the room they shared, and in every other space they shared while he was alive. Michael says Ganiyu was not just a cousin but a friend and a brother too.&nbsp;



“I can’t sleep,” Michael says. “My head swells every time I enter the room. I always feel like he is inside, watching me. I have not been able to close my eyes because I see&nbsp; him.”



Ganiyu’s younger brother, 13-year-old Aliu Ibrahim, says he misses his brother and the afternoon treats he used to get on their way back from school. Since Ganiyu’s death, Aliu Ibrahim says he has had a deep sense of loneliness &#8211; that not even the company of other siblings and cousins has succeeded in cheering him up.



“I feel like I have been taken to a new place and left all by myself,” he says.&nbsp;



Ganiyu was born in 2000, in the same town where he was killed.&nbsp;



His father, Salaudeen Ibrahim, is a farmer in his 50s. He lives in an extended family compound with his brothers, Ganiyu’s uncles, as is the tradition in many indigenous households in Nigeria.&nbsp;&nbsp;



“Whoever killed my son inflicted a deep sore in my heart,¨ Salaudeen Ibrahim says.



¨It won’t heal.¨

The Good Student

Emmanuel Egbo’s 13-year-old life was snuffed out 13 years ago by a law enforcement officer without reason or remorse.



Emmanuel Egbo was thirteen years old when a police officer killed him.&nbsp;



Think about the thirteen-year-olds in your life. They laugh a lot. Play a lot. Emmanuel was just like that. He loved to play football. Whenever he returned from school, he would finish his homework &#8211; if there was any &#8211; run errands like fetching firewood and planting cassava for his mother, then run to the field to play football.



On the evening of May 26, 2008, in Attakwu, a town in Enugu State, Emmanuel was in front of his uncle’s house playing ball one evening when trouble came. What was the trouble? Nigerian police. The police officers walked up to Emmanuel and asked him what he was doing. He stated the obvious: He was playing football.&nbsp;



One of the police officers, out of nowhere, aimed his gun at Emmanuel and fired.&nbsp;



Emmanuel died on the spot. His ball was still rolling when his lifeless body hit the floor. He was 13 years old.



The police officers put Emmanuel’s corpse in their pickup van and drove to their station, the Divisional Police Station in Agbani.&nbsp;



His mother, Grace, had six children &#8211; two boys and four girls. His father, Joseph, was a railway worker who died in 1997. Emmanuel’s elder brother, Peter, died in 1998.



Emmanuel’s cousin, Gabriel Ugwu, describes him as an intelligent boy who always topped his class. His family had hoped that when he grew up he would become a star and transform their lives.&nbsp;



Gabriel was one of the family members who rushed to the police station on hearing about his death. Gabriel says Mr. Hussein, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO), confirmed that police officers had brought the corpse of a boy to the station and that one of the police officers had confessed to killing the boy because he was an armed robber.&nbsp;



How is a 13 year old boy playing ball outside of his uncle’s house a thief? Were any weapons found on him? Had he been seen robbing anybody? These were the questions Emmanulel’s family asked DPO Hussein. The DPO defended himself by saying he had merely believed the story he was told.&nbsp;



Later, the police officer who shot and killed Emmanuel was identified as Corporal Habila. According to the lawyer handling the case, Corporal Habila has since run away.



The police dropped Emmanuel’s body at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku Ozalla. The hospital did not allow his family to see his corpse because the police had told the hospital that Emmanuel was an armed robber.&nbsp;



Grace says her son was a devout Catholic and an altar boy. And that he was helpful and strong for someone his age and size. Emmanuel always assisted on the farm. He went to the farm every Saturday to get firewood for her. He also dug a well in the family compound.



Emmanuel’s family wrote to Mohamed Zarewa, the Enugu State Commissioner of Police (CP), but there was no meaningful feedback. They got in touch with a lawyer, Olu Omotayo of Civil Rights Realization and Accountability Network (CRRAN), who took up the case and began writing petitions against the extrajudicial killing of Emmanuel. Mr. Omotayo wrote to Ogbonna Okechukwu Onovo, the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Amnesty International, the Police Service Commission (PSC) and even the presidency.&nbsp;



Mr. Omotayo eventually got the IGP’s attention, who ordered the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) of Zone 9 in Abia State to find Corporal Habila. Corporal Habila was found in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, and brought back to Enugu. He was charged with murder at the Enugu High Court.&nbsp;



Gabriel Ugwu says the case soon became warped in corruption, as the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP), whose name Mr. Ugwu cannot remember, chose not to bring forth eyewitnesses from the side of the police to testify before the court. The DPP insisted that there was no need for eyewitnesses since Corporal Habila had admitted in his statement that he was guilty. The case kept on getting adjourned.&nbsp;



Soon, Gabriel Ugwu lost interest. Sometime in 2019, a number he did not know called him. He picked the call and, on the other end of the line, was Corporal Habila.&nbsp;



Corporal Habila, while laughing, told him that he was in Lagos as a free man. Gabriel Ugwu says he wept.&nbsp;



Thirteen years after, Emmanuel’s corpse is yet to be released to his family.&nbsp; His mother says she prays every day that her son’s remains are released so she can give him a befitting burial.&nbsp;



“If they [the police] had given me his corpse, I would have forgotten about it [Emmanuel’s death],” Grace says. “But since they have not given it to me, I remember him all the time.”



______



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

Shattered Dreams

When a beloved bus driver refused to surrender his car keys to a security man, he was shot in his ear and his spinal cord, sparking a four-day battle for his life which he eventually lost.



Daniel Ikechukwu Ugwu, who died in January 2020 at the age of 32, was a native of Imilike Ani, a town in Udenu Local Government Area of Enugu State.&nbsp;



A faithful family man, Mr Ugwu was a loving husband to 27-year-old Onyinyechi Ugwu and a caring father to their six children.&nbsp;



On Children’s Day, he would take his wife and children to Okpara Square, an open space for celebration in the state’s capital Enugu, to have fun. The family would visit popular supermarkets—Shoprite and Spar—and buy goodies, all while laughing and holding hands.



______



At about 5 p.m. on January 6, 2020, Mr Ugwu, a driver for the transport company Peace Mass Transit (PMT), arrived at the company’s bus terminal in Yenagoa, the capital of Bayelsa State, having travelled from Onitsha in Anambra State.&nbsp;



While the passengers were alighting from the vehicle and their luggage was being brought out, a policeman attached to Fidelity Bank, Okutukutu in Yenagoa, approached Daniel.



The policeman asked Daniel to hand over his car keys. When he refused to comply, the policeman cocked his gun and shot Daniel, also injuring a passenger in the process.&nbsp;



The policeman tried to run away but was caught by witnesses and beaten up. The police arrived later and rescued their trigger-happy colleague from the mob. They also took Daniel and the injured passenger to the hospital.



Onyinyechi Ugwu, who was seven months pregnant at the time, said she and her husband had spoken in the early hours of that day. She was in her village at Ezza, in Ebonyi State. She had been preparing to return the next day, to Enugu, where the family lived. She says when her husband called that morning, he had asked about the children and told her he was about to begin his journey from Onitsha to Yenagoa. This was one of the things she loved about him, she says; he told her everything he planned to do, never kept her in the dark.



Mrs Ugwu was distraught when news of her husband’s shooting reached her. The man who called to give her the news also told her that her husband, who had regained consciousness despite getting hit in his left ear and spinal cord, wanted to speak with her. Daniel asked her to come to Yenagoa. He told her he was dying.



Throughout the night, Mrs Ugwu cried while her mother and family members tried to console her.



On January 10, 2020, four days after he was shot, Mr Ugwu died at the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH).&nbsp;



It is now 2021, more than a year after Daniel’s death.&nbsp;



His wife is yet to receive the compensation—2.5 million naira—that Fidelity Bank’s representative promised to pay for the upkeep of her children. When she requested to know the reason for the delay, the representative told her the bank headquarters was yet to approve for the money to be released. Mrs Ugwu also says the police in Yenagoa have done nothing to assist her.



Mrs Ugwu remembers her husband as a “loving, caring, generous and playful man” who never let his wife and children lack anything.



Daniel, his wife says, extended his kind and caring nature to many others; his mother, siblings, co-workers, friends.&nbsp;



She now sells food to take care of her children, but this does not bring in nearly enough. They owe several months of rent and may soon be thrown out. The children no longer go to school. She just cannot afford it.&nbsp;



Mrs Ugwu, meanwhile, now has problems with her eyes. Her mental health has deteriorated too. She is barely able to pay attention during conversations, always finding herself absent-minded, worrying.&nbsp;



“My heart is bleeding, seriously,” she says. “It is a lifetime’s worth of pain.”



____



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

A Man of the People

On the brink of his final secondary school exams, devout Catholic, Christopher Omeje had just closed from rosary prayers when he was gunned down by SARS officers, who mistook him for a criminal.



Christopher Chukwuebuka Omeje died on June 30, 2009. He was 19 years old.&nbsp;



Cause of death? SARS.&nbsp;



Christopher lived in Ovoko, a town in Igbo Eze South Local Government of Enugu State, where he attended the Boys Secondary School.



He loved to read and excelled academically. He read anything, at any time. Labels, books, receipts, anything.



When the time for his Senior Secondary School Examination (SSCE) drew near, Christopher begged his father, Dominic Omeje, to get him a room in a house close to his school to enable him to study for his exams without distraction. His father obliged and found for him a house, paying the rent for a year.&nbsp;



The only thing Christopher loved more than reading, was attending Block Rosary gatherings,&nbsp; where fellow Catholics had prayer and fellowship sessions in front of a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Christopher never missed these.&nbsp;



One evening, after a Block Rosary gathering, Christopher stood at a bus stop waiting for the bus home. While he waited, officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS), who were dressed in mufti, drove past him.&nbsp;



The officers stopped their car and reversed, screeching to a halt where Christopher was standing.&nbsp;



Then, one of the officers, later identified as Inspector Victor Ugwu, shot Christopher.&nbsp;



Just like that.&nbsp;



The officers put him in their car and drove off. Unfortunately, before they got to Iheaka, a nearby community, Christopher had bled to death.&nbsp;



The officers drove to Urban Police Station, in Nsukka, where they reported that they had shot him because they suspected he was a “criminal.”&nbsp;



They took the corpse to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH) in Ituku Ozalla, Enugu.



When news of Christopher&#8217;s death reached his family, they could not believe it.&nbsp;



“We didn’t know what to do at first,” Christopher’s 27-year-old sister, Onyinyechi Omeje, says. “We didn’t believe the story.”&nbsp;



His father, Dominic, who was not in town when his son was shot dead, asked his brother Alphonsus Omeje to go to UNTH and confirm the news by identifying Christopher’s corpse. Alphonsus returned from UNTH with sad news.



Christopher’s corpse was in the mortuary for three months before the police released it to his family for burial. The police told the family that what had happened to their 19-year-old was a “mistake”.



During his burial, Christopher’s fellow Block Rosary members wept and walked the streets of Nsukka, chanting his name and demanding justice.&nbsp;



After the burial, Christopher’s family employed the services of a lawyer, Ike Obeta, and sued Inspector Victor Ugwu at the Enugu Ezike High Court. During one of the court sessions, Dominic asked Inspector Victor Ugwu if his son had done anything to him to warrant killing him. The latter said it was a mistake, that he did not even know Christopher.



Four years on, the case has amounted to nothing. “It appeared that the police didn&#8217;t want the killer to face justice,” Dominic says. “We kept on going and seeking justice for 4 years, yet nothing happened. At a point, I became tired. They were asking us to come today, come tomorrow.”&nbsp;



Inspector Victor Ugwu is still a free man.



“I have stopped thinking about it to avoid high blood pressure. Now, my son&#8217;s killer is free. We still see and greet. But each time I see him, I get angry because he reminds me of my late son.”



Dominic Omeje says he had to relocate his family to Nsukka because, at Ovoko, whenever his wife saw Christopher’s grave in front of their compound, she broke down in tears.&nbsp;&nbsp;



Apart from his own struggles with high blood pressure, Dominic says he fights the urge to cry anytime he hears the name of his late son or sees any of his former classmates. He recalls with difficulty how his son only stayed 15 days in the house he had rented.



Thaddeus Omeje, 21, one of Christopher’s brothers, says his late brother taught him how to play the drums, and was strict but gentle.



“He always encouraged us to be serious in whatever we were doing, especially with our education,” Thaddeus says. “He was a perfect example because he was always serious.



“Anytime we had assignments in Maths, we were never worried because he was always going to help us with them,”&nbsp;



On June 30th of every year, Christopher’s family—father, mother, three brothers and three sisters—say a prayer for him. They also have a celebration of Mass dedicated to him, to remember and celebrate memories of him.&nbsp;



Christopher would have been 31 years today. His killer, Victor Ugwu, has never been arrested.&nbsp;



Until justice is served and Victor Ugwu is imprisoned, all the family has to keep itself sane is the hope that their beloved son and brother is resting in God’s bosom.&nbsp;



_____



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

Catholic to Criminal

Twelve years ago, a land tussle sent Chijioke Ugwu into the notorious hands of SARS officials, who tortured him to death.



Chijioke Ugwu, who died aged 62 in July 2009, was an astute businessman who started with a pickup truck. He used the truck to supply wood to construction sites in the southeastern Nigerian city of Enugu. With the money he made from that business, he bought another truck, which he gave out on hire purchase. A native of Akegbe-Ugwu in the Nkanu-West Local Government Area of Enugu State, Mr Ugwu also owned a garri-processing plant that produced at least thirty bags daily.&nbsp;



A family man, he had two wives and a full house. The first wife bore five children, while the second wife produced three. Every Christmas Eve, Mr Ugwu would drive his first wife—Obiageli Ugwu—and their five children to the market to shop for clothes, foodstuff, shoes and any other thing they needed for the Yuletide.&nbsp; He also made sure that Obiageli’s drinks-and-beverages provision store was always filled with goods, and had begun plans to buy her a car.



Mr Ugwu was popular in his community and loved the tradition of his people. He participated in masquerade festivals and gave money to the masquerades. The Igwe of the community always listened to him because of his reputation as an honest man. Mr Ugwu joined the community’s security team and in his time, incidents of robbery in Akegbe-Ugwu reduced.&nbsp;



On July 17, 2009, Mr Ugwu drove to a friend’s mechanic shop at Gariki in Enugu to repair his truck. There, a friend, Paul Mba, called and asked for his location.&nbsp;



Mr Ugwu disclosed his whereabouts to Mr Mba, and after a few minutes, police officers stormed the place and arrested him. Before then, the police had arrested two other men who Mr Ugwu knew. The men, like Mr Ugwu, were part of the security team of Akegbe-Ugwu. The police officers took Mr Ugwu and the two men to Gariki Police Station.



At the station, Mr Ugwu called his first wife, Mrs Ugwu, and told her what had happened to him. The next day, July 18, Obiageli went to the station but did not see her husband. A police officer told her Mr Ugwu had been transferred to the office of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) located at Enugu-Onitsha road, New Market.



At the SARS office, the officers insisted that Mrs Ugwu must pay 1,000 naira before she would be allowed to see her husband. Upon payment, her husband’s cell was unlocked.



Mrs Ugwu recalls how traumatizing the sight of her husband was upon his release: as a result of the beatings he had endured in custody, Mr Ugwu’s body was full of wounds, his legs were broken, and his jeans soaked with blood.&nbsp;



On July 20, Mr Ugwu was taken to an Enugu Magistrates’ court, alongside the two men arrested with him. The court, unfortunately, could not sit because the injuries the men had sustained in custody had left them weak. The judge instructed them to get treatment before appearing in court again.&nbsp;



Later, Mr Ugwu informed his wife that the SARS officers had planned to take him back to the cell, where they were sure to continue torturing him. Fearing the worst, Mrs Ugwu begged the magistrate to send her husband to prison instead of the cell. The magistrate, much to the annoyance of the SARS officers, agreed. Mr Ugwu was taken to an Enugu prison.



The people of Akegbe-Ugwu at that time had a land tussle with Akwuke, a neighbouring community. Mr Ugwu and the two other arrested men were at the forefront of this struggle. Mrs Ugwu believes her husband and the men were targeted arrests. Her first daughter, 25-year-old Nnenna, supports her argument. Nnenna recalls that her father told her that one of the SARS officers had told him to pay five million naira to regain his freedom, as some members of the Akwuke community had ordered his death by paying 500,000 naira to the SARS officers. Nnenna says her father rejected the offer.



On July 21, Mr Ugwu died in the clinic of the Enugu prison. His remains were taken to the University of Nigeria Teaching Hospital (UNTH), Ituku Ozalla, where an autopsy was conducted and a verdict reached: He had died from a lethal injection administered to him in SARS custody.



Mr Ugwu’s family filed a petition against the SARS officers and went to court in March of 2010. In 2011, the court ruled in their favour and demanded that they be compensated with the sum of five million naira. Instead, the family received 1,090,000 naira, which Mrs. Obiageli Ugwu shared with her husband&#8217;s second wife in the presence of their lawyer. The family is yet to receive the rest of the compensation.



After Mr. Ugwu was buried in June 2012, the family returned to court twice, demanding the remainder of the money. But they kept getting tossed to and fro, and have grown tired of following up.



Mr Ugwu’s family have struggled financially since his death. His pickup trucks were sold to pay bills. His workers at the garri-processing plant embezzled money and sold some of the machines. His wife’s business collapsed.&nbsp;



His daughter, Nnenna, could no longer pursue her dream of becoming a medical doctor and had to get married in 2017 at the age of 22. Nnenna’s other siblings have dropped out of school, too, and taken up different small-scale businesses.&nbsp;



Nnenna says, “I love and miss my father. Most times, I feel like he is still here.”



_______



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

Murder by Torture

A lively, innocent teenager with big dreams was returning from church with his family when a stray bullet from a police officer changed his life.



At 13, Isaac already knows what it means to be poor. His dream is to become a lawyer so he can protect his mother, and “take his family out of poverty.”



Isaac’s law ambition was threatened when he was almost killed by the Nigeria Police Force.&nbsp;



The officer responsible for shooting Isaac in the belly remains unknown.



It was one stray bullet from many targeted at young Nigerians who had poured onto the streets of Ogbomoso in Oyo State, demanding an end to police brutality.&nbsp;



Last October, protests against police brutality began across Nigeria. In Ogbomoso on October 10, 2020, hundreds of youth marched to the palace of the paramount ruler in the town, the Soun of Ogbomoso, Jimoh Oyewumi.&nbsp;



“They were welcomed at the palace,” one source reveals. “They were not causing any trouble. They did not have any weapon. They were singing and carrying placards.¨



“They wanted to visit the police station to talk to the DPO, and that was how the trouble started. The police did not want them to come close, so they started shooting at them.”



20-year-old Jimoh Isiaq was killed during the police assault on peaceful protesters. The next day, the protesters, angered by the death of the innocent young man, marched unto the streets once again. They were however greeted with an even greater show of force by the police. More people were shot, and at least three people were killed.&nbsp;



Isaac, in the company of his mother, Mary, and his two younger brothers, was walking back from church on October 11 when they found their path &#8211; the Oke Owode road in Ogbomoso &#8211; hijacked. Loud, sporadic gunshots from police officers sent everyone scampering for safety.



The family ran in different directions, with all but one of them coming out of the hailstorm of bullets unscathed.



A bullet struck Isaac’s back and knocked him to the ground. But Isaac got up and continued running until the numbing pain in his stomach overwhelmed him and his knees buckled. He slumped.



“I thought that was all,” his mother remembers. “I became so powerless when I saw him fall. I did not know what to do anymore. I was disoriented. People around quickly helped me carry him, put him on a (motor) bike which took him to the hospital. He was receiving blood when I got to the hospital later. Some people were donating blood for him already.”



Mary says she did not think her son would survive when she saw him slump. He seemed lifeless as people rushed him to Bowen University Teaching Hospital.&nbsp;



Yet when Mary got to the hospital and realised that her greatest fear had not happened, that her son was still alive, her fear did not at all dissipate. The mother knew she would be unable to help her son stay alive due to the challenge of settling expensive surgery and treatment bills. She is extremely poor, lives below one dollar a day, and barely has enough to feed herself and her five children.&nbsp;



“I thought I would lose him eventually,” the mother says in Yoruba. ¨I knew it would cost a lot of money to keep him alive, and I knew I would not be able to afford it. I only had the N500 I had planned to use to cook on me.”&nbsp;



‘It was a miracle’



Mary says her child was a healthy, active young boy before the incident. He loved football, and was fond of kicking plastic bottles around the neighbourhood like many children his age. He was obedient and loved attending church.&nbsp;



“Anytime I told him it was time for church, he would follow me without complaint,” she says.



But Isaac is now a shadow of his old exuberant self. Since getting shot, a lot has changed for the 13-year-old.&nbsp;



He is always tired and never leaves their home except with his mother. He has stopped playing. He now moves slowly, cautious not to aggravate the gunshot wound, which is covered with cotton wool and plaster inches above his waistline. His lips are cracked, his eyes sunken. He looks terribly emaciated.&nbsp;



“I just sleep on the bed now,” he says with quivering lips.



After the shooting, Isaac was unconscious for two days, and on hospital admission for four weeks while doctors and nurses fought to keep him alive. He doesn’t remember being in the surgical theatre or the Intensive Care Unit.



At least four people were shot dead during the protests in Ogbomosho. The doctor who removed the bullet lodged in Isaac’s belly told his mother it was a miracle the teenager survived. There are a number of major organs in the stomach, and had the bullet hit one of them, Isaac could have died.



Apart from God, Mary says she owes the miracle of Isaac’s survival to Sunday Dare, Nigeria’s Minister of Youth and Sport, who paid his hospital bills.&nbsp;



“When the hospital gave me the bill for his operation,” she recounts, “I was scared. I did not have that kind of money, but Sunday Dare came, cleared the bill and gave us a note that exempted Isaac from any payment for further treatment at the hospital.”



Isaac begins to cry as he remembers the life-changing incident. He says he would like to go back to school, ride more bicycles and run around the community&#8211; all of the carefree, youthful things he used to do before he became one of the many victims of police brutality.&nbsp;



“I stay inside everytime now,” he says, sobbing. “It saddens my heart that I can&#8217;t play with my friends anymore.”



Isaac’s mother took him to the hospital when he recently complained about pains in his back and butt, but his doctor said there was nothing to be worried about.&nbsp;



Seyi Makinde, the Governor of Oyo State, has condoled with the families of victims, even as the police have denied continuously that its men shot at peaceful protests.&nbsp;



“The police did not fire a shot or kill any protester as widely circulated,” the police claim.&nbsp;



Mary has no doubt that it was the police who shot her son, but given the fact that they lack the money and the social status to hold the government to account, both mother and child have resolved to leave them to God.&nbsp;



“Only God can judge the police who shot me,” 13-year-old Isaac says, softly.&nbsp;



___



This story is part of a multimedia project by Tiger Eye Foundation and media partners across Nigeria, documenting police brutality in Nigeria, and advocating for police reform.

Caught In Open Fire

On October 20, 2020, Olalekan Falaye decided to join thousands of other youth to walk the talk of their SARS-related grievances with a peaceful protest. But after all was said and done, there was no peace, neither was there, for Falaye, an ability to walk on two feet anymore



Olalekan Falaye, 23, is now handicap. His right leg was amputated as a result of the gunshot injury he sustained at the Lekki Toll Gate on Tuesday, October 20, 2020.&nbsp;



He claims soldiers shot at him during the peaceful #ENDSARS protest. Falaye’s revelation is yet another piece of evidence backing the belief that soldiers shot live ammunition at protesters during the Lekki attack, a claim that the army continues to deny.&nbsp;



The video of a young man being hounded and shot at by the notorious Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) led to a nationwide protest that started on October 7. The protests started as a trending hashtag on social media platform Twitter, before growing into street protests in various cities across the country.



However, over ten days after the protest started, hoodlums alleged to be sponsored by the government, attacked protesters in different states. At least two people were killed in Abuja following the attack.



In response to the attack, some state governors announced curfews to clear the cities of both peaceful protesters and hoodlums. But sooner than the curfew was announced in Lagos, the Nigerian Army clamped down on protesters in Lekki.&nbsp;



Amnesty International said at least 12 people were killed during the attack. A popular Nigerian Disc jockey, DJ Switch, said she counted 15 people who were killed and their corpses taken away in military vans.&nbsp;



The Nigerian army initially denied its men were present at the toll gate, but after the state governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu, confessed during an interview with the CNN that soldiers were indeed deployed to the scene, the army rescinded its earlier position.



Multiple pieces of evidence have since emerged to show that people were killed or maimed during what has now been dubbed as the #LekkiMassacre. Falaye was one of those maimed during the attack.&nbsp;



“On Tuesday, I decided to join the protests after I closed from work,” Falaye explained. “It was about 7 pm when we were told the soldiers had arrived, that we should not run but sit down on the floor. The soldiers just started shooting up in the air.”



Falaye’s account checked repeated verifications and even part of the military’s narrative. The Commander of 81 Division of the Nigerian Army, Major-General Ahmed Ibrahim Taiwo, revealed while being cross-examined at the Lagos State Judicial panel that the soldiers deployed to Lekki went with live rounds, contrary to the initial stand that the soldiers only fired blanks.&nbsp;



The Nigerian army continued to insist that its soldiers only shot in the air, but that only accounted for a few minutes after the soldiers arrived at the scene. What followed hours later was heinous human rights violations and extrajudicial killings, according to Falaye’s account and investigations carried out by CNN and Premium Times.&nbsp;



“It got to a point, the soldiers faced us (protesters) and started shooting at us. It was at that point that a bullet met me in my leg. It was a good samaritan who helped me and carried me to Randville, saving my life,” Falaye claimed.&nbsp;



His medical report from Randville Trauma Centre, where he received initial treatment, confirmed that he was indeed shot at Lekki Toll Gate.&nbsp;



“He sustained this injury as a result of his involvement in the Endsars protest that occurred at Lekki Toll gate,” his medical report read. “The flesh on his leg was torn open by the bullet.”



The hospital recommended amputation, claiming, “no pulse was felt” on his leg. He was subsequently referred to the National Orthopedic Hospital in Igbobi, Lagos, where the procedure was carried out five days later.&nbsp;



Since Falaye’s mother, Temitope, got the news about her son, she said she’s faced a great financial challenge to get him the necessary medical care. It took a hit on both her savings and capital for her food business. She sold noodles by the road side and offered cleaning services.



“When I got to Igbobi, they said I should go and bring money for a bed. I opened a (patient´s) card, after which I was given a drug prescription. I spent fifty something thousand the first day alone, and that only accounts for what I could calculate,” the dejected mother said, adding she was only able to afford some of the medical expenses because of help from her church members and friends.&nbsp;



The mother is grateful that Falaye learnt a trade, but she is worried he might not be able to raise capital to start up a shop after coming out of apprenticeship.&nbsp;



“I need them (government) to help us because even what to eat has now become so hard,” she said.

Stolen Legs at Lekki

Wrongly assumed to be an armed robber, Olusegun Adesanya Openiyi was brutally gunned down by a SARS operative close to 14 years ago. With pain that is yet to heal, his father and widow remember him.



When Tolulope gave up her maiden name to take up her husband’s surname, it was the happiest moment of her life. Setting out on a journey of forever with her best friend filled her with ecstasy.



But this was all short-lived.



Her husband was shot and killed. And the men behind the trigger worked for the dissolved Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).



Tolulope’s life derailed when she got the news of her husband’s death. What was she to do with a two-month-old baby and another two-year-old infant? How was she to live without her companion, friend and partner? The reality almost took the life out of her.



“The pain was too much to bear,” she says. “I was 31 years old, and was early in my marriage, which was then just two years and two months old.”



Her husband Olusegun Adesanya Openiyi was killed on his way to work on August 20, 2007, and 13 years on, Tolulope’s grief remains raw, having barely healed. She still tears up at the mention of her husband.



“He was a caring father,” she fondly recalls, “a caring husband, a lovely brother and a good son,”&nbsp;



Olusegun, who was 34, died of multiple gunshot wounds. As his widow remembers, he was killed at the entrance of the University of Lagos, where he was going for a product activation. He worked with the defunct Econet telecommunication &#8211; now Airtel.&nbsp;



“They killed my son,” says Micheal Adebola Openiyi, Olesegun’s father. “SARS killed my son.”&nbsp;



The senior Openiyi is 71, and has a face that carries the weight of his experience in life. He is a retired soldier. He looks shrivelled, but is agile. He uses denture to support his upper lip.&nbsp;



“I would not have been suffering like this if he were alive,” he says. “He was the breadwinner.”



The senior Openiyi remembers the day he was told his son had been gunned down like a criminal. The DPO of Sabo Police Station, Samuel Olukayode, broke the news to him.&nbsp;



Olusegun had been shot by a policeman, whose name the DPO gave as Sergeant Jide Akintola. Akintola had apparently mistaken Olusegun for an armed robber.



“They shot his tyre first,” the senior Openiyi remembers. “They opened the door of his hilux van and shot him twice at the right hand side of his chest.”



“The DPO told us to go and see the corpse of my late son at Lagos General Hospital mortuary. When I got there, I was told there was no Olusegun Openiyi in the morgue, but that the police from Sabo Station had brought a corpse that had been tagged as unknown.”



When they brought out the said corpse, the senior Openiyi recognized it. It may have been unknown to everyone else, but not to him. It was his son.



He wrote multiple letters to the Nigerian Police Force, seeking justice for his son, but got no response. The lead counsel representing the force at the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Enquiry claimed he got no response because it was not the police who killed Olusegun.&nbsp;



“I put it to you that the IGP did not respond to your letter because it was not the police who killed your son,” the police lawyer said.



But Openiyi Snr. disagrees.



“The police killed my son!” he insists.

From Sleep to Fear and Frustration.

In the wake of his SARS experience, Christian Okeke is convinced that some members of the erstwhile unit ¨deserve to die¨ because ¨everything they do is evil¨



One Sunday in early May this year, I strode to the spot at Urban Girls Secondary School, Ekwulobia, in the southeastern Nigerian state of Anambra.&nbsp;



I had parked my car there the night before.&nbsp;



Yet all I could see now was a vacant patch of grass. The car was gone.



My name is Christian Okeke. I’m a 30-year-old motor mechanic. I have been a motor mechanic for six years and, due to my experience and skill, I have managed to build a substantial number of customers.



What had happened to my car? Well, a neighbour had an answer. At about 10 p.m. the night before, my neighbour claimed, he had seen an officer of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) hotwiring my car.



The next day, I marched to the SARS office. Upon getting there, I saw my car. I demanded to know why the SARS officers had taken my car. Their response? They had found a bag containing Indian hemp in the car. They added that they also suspected the car was being used for armed robbery operations.&nbsp;



They then asked me to pay before they could let me drive my car home.&nbsp;



I was utterly shocked at the accusation of armed robbery.



In Ekwulobia, SARS officers are dubbed “criminals” because of how often they come to arrest young, innocent youths. Openly, the officers ask their victims to make calls for money to pay their way out or risk losing their lives. SARS officers are said to always come around at least once every two weeks to make massive arrests.



When I told the officers that I did not have any money, they said they would have to ‘do their job’. That was when they pushed me into a cell. They tried to intimidate me and said I was stubborn.&nbsp;



They asked me to make a statement. I told them I did not have anything to write because I did not know the crime I had committed. After some time, they asked me how much I had on me and I told them I had 1,000 naira. They said I was not serious.



Before the SARS officers shoved me into the cell and collected my phone, I had managed to call my brother, whom I asked to inform my friend, a police officer named Dennis, about the fact that I was on the verge of being locked up.



Dennis, whose car I usually repaired, called the SARS officers, who responded by releasing me. But this was after the officers had collected the money I had on me, which was about 12,000 naira.&nbsp;



The menace of SARS officers is an old tale, dating back to the early 2000s. The police unit, which was created to combat armed robbery and kidnapping, has become synonymous with extrajudicial killings, kidnapping, extortion and torture.&nbsp;



I remember how the officers, after they had brought me out of the cell, asking me to buy them drinks. I wondered why they would ask me to buy them drinks even after they took my money for a crime I did not commit.



I will never forget my SARS story. SARS officers are so cold-hearted and inconsiderate. They have criminal tendencies too. I still can’t explain how they managed to take the car to the station because I remember it was locked. Those gun-weirdling operatives are nothing but retired criminals.



Some of them kill with reckless abandon. They victimize innocent citizens; and if you refuse to give them what they demand from you, they make you suffer unnecessarily. It is an institution which deserved to be dissolved a long time ago.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



I am actually angry that no SARS officer died as a result of the #ENDSARS protests. Some of those people deserve to die.&nbsp;



Look, instead of ever working as a SARS officer, I would rather die. Everything they do is evil.

“Retired Criminals”

Patrick Ugwuowo´s experience with SARS brings to the fore one of the erstwhile unit´s most popular weapons: profiling &#8211; where one´s very appearance is the crime.



One morning in mid-August 2020, my friend and I were travelling to Anambra State to attend a former colleague’s child dedication ceremony.



Ugwuaji is a southeastern community in Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State.



I am Patrick by the way, a surveyor for a real estate company in Enugu. I am into politics too. I have a couple of political appointments here and there. I am not living on one source of income.



Anyway, back to my car trip. Around 9am that morning, something happened on the road. It looked like a robbery scene from a movie. Our car, a Lexus 350, was double-crossed by members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) at Ugwuaji Axis.



The SARS officers, four in all, leapt out from their vehicle, cocked their guns, and ordered my friend and I out of our car.



We felt scared and intimidated by the officers’ approach. When we tried asking what the problem was, the officers shut us down by shouting. They called us criminals.



That&nbsp; day, my friend and I had left our homes well-prepared for the journey. Our car’s papers were complete and up-to-date. I had my office ID card and Voter’s Card in my wallet. My friend, who was driving, also had his driver’s license.&nbsp;



The SARS officers asked us to pull over to the side of the road and requested to see the papers of the car. My friend obliged. The officers found no fault after their inspection. They then asked us to identify ourselves, which we did.



The SARS officers wondered how my friend and I, two young men, could afford a car and dress that well. That day, my friend and I sported new haircuts and were dressed in senator attires. (Senator attires are a type of clothing design with fitted long-sleeved tops and a pair of fitted trousers). They concluded that we were criminals.



The truth of the matter is that my real estate job is lucrative. Depending on the type of deal, I can fetch up to 5 million naira in a day. Besides, due to my side hustle in politics, I do not have a single stream of income. I am privileged to be relatively well-to-do at 29.



It was embarrassing and ridiculous that the officers decided to assault us, not for driving at high speed, or for having incomplete papers, or even for possessing drugs or ammunition, but for simply looking good and living well.&nbsp;



The SARS officers seized the key to our car. They then said they needed to take us to the station to ‘investigate’ our source of income.. We asked them to produce an order that entitled them to take us in for investigation,&nbsp; but they could not show us one. All they had, apparently, was their suspicion and their word &#8211; enforced by their intimidation.



Later, the SARS officers asked us to pay 50, 000 naira before they would let us go. When I boldly asked why we were being asked to pay money when we had not committed any offence, one of the officers got angry and tried to punch me, but I luckily managed to dodge the blow.



Seeing that the officers were armed and dangerous, my friend and I resolved to stay calm. If these officers had been crazy enough to double-cross us movie-style, then it wasn’t beyond them to kill us in the same vein.



After hours of back-and-forth negotiations, my friend and I gave the SARS officers 20, 000 naira, after which they decided to let us go.&nbsp;



It was now 5pm. We had missed the child dedication event we had been headed to.&nbsp;



But it wasn’t the only thing&nbsp; I missed that day. I had also planned to meet a client, only for me to fail to turn up due to the SARS hold-up. The plan had been to arrive in Anambra State for the child dedication, stay for 45 minutes and then rush back to Enugu for the meeting. I had to lie to my client that I had been caught up in traffic. That missed meeting meant loss of money for me. I was disappointed.&nbsp;



I believe the issue of police brutality is a cankerworm that has eaten so deep into the fabric of Nigerian culture. The police are emboldened because they work with arms and can intimidate anybody at any time they feel like. Also, it is appalling that the police who have been charged with the responsibility of making sure Nigerians are safe have turned out to be the very reason why most Nigerians don’t feel safe.



I feel the federal government does not seem to have plans to protect the citizens and as such, the citizens have decided to protect themselves by staying out of the way of security operatives.&nbsp;



Can you imagine a society where people aspire to be well-to-do, only to become well-to-do and be labelled as a criminal.&nbsp;



Sadly, young people especially have had to adjust their lifestyle out of fear of being harassed by security operatives. Even going out to have fun with friends has now become a risky activity. Young people cannot continue living in fear. There’s nothing scarier than your protector turning against you.&nbsp; It’s like being at home and being afraid of your own parents rather than intruders,



I am proud to have been a part of the #ENDSARS movement, helping in the mobilization of protesters, donations and advocacy. Not least as a result of my own experience, I was highly motivated to pick up a placard and march for three days in Enugu to lend my voice against the absurdity that is SARS brutality.



I am happy the unit is no more, but the battle to bring sanity is far from over.

You Are Who SARS says You Are

After his arrest, Eze Ebuka insisted he was not a cultist, so SARS tortured him into admitting he was one.



I’m Eze Ebuka, a welder. I’m the first in a family of three.&nbsp;



This is my SARS story.



Around 1 am on Saturday, May 23, 2020, I was jolted from sleep by a bang on the door of the main entrance to my home, which is in the southeastern Nigerian town of Ekwulobia.&nbsp;



Five officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) had come in over the fence, wielding guns and machetes, screaming my name.



My mum opened our door, asking why they were calling me at that hour. The answer that came was that they had a message for me. “Why couldn’t you have waited until daybreak,” my mother asked. They did not answer this time, but rather kept calling my name, claiming that whatever they needed me for was urgent.



The SARS officers forced their way past my mum and into our house, then barged into my room &#8211; meeting me in my shorts. They asked me to throw on some clothes, then they scattered my room, as though they were in search of something.



I did not know what they were looking for, but whatever it was, it was clear they didn’t find it. They handcuffed me, after which they told my mother that they had come from the Central Police Station (CPS) in Nnewi, 25 kilometers west of Ekwulobia, and that she would have to go there if she wanted to know why they had arrested me.



On our way out of Ekwulobia to the station, the SARS officers asked me to provide names of five cult members if I wanted to be set free. I told them I wasn’t a cult member and indeed did not know any cult members, but they believed I was lying and said they would make me confess once we got to the station.



Forced confession



Around 3 a.m., we arrived at the station. I was taken into custody along with five other boys they had arrested that morning. I was told I would be the first suspect to be tortured in order for me to confess my cult membership.



I was led somewhere within the station, where I was asked to sit on the ground. I was asked again whether I was a cult member, and I continued to defend myself, informing them about the fact that I had a legitimate job that occupied me from the early hours of the day into late night. I told them I had nothing to do with cultists, and I knew of no other family member of mine who had an association with cultism.



They didn’t believe me. They started to torture me. They bound my legs and hands behind my back, with my head facing the ground. Two of the officers then put rods between my hands and legs, which they used to lift me so I’d be suspended in the air.



It all felt like a dream. A nightmare. As the rod injured my hands and legs, I began to cry out of the pain. It was unbearable, and I remember starting to shout out for help. Some officers came in upon my cry, and I told them, out of desperation, that I was indeed a cult member. I just wanted the torture to end.&nbsp;



“Do you belong to Aromate (a notorious cult group that usually causes trouble around the Ekwulobia town)?” they asked. “Yes,” I responded. This was around 4am. I was at my breaking point.



“When did you join the cult?” they asked.&nbsp;



“January,” I replied.&nbsp;



“How many members were there when you got initiated?”



“Five,” I lied in response.



They then told me that I had my finger punctured for a blood covenant as part of my initiation process. This was not a question &#8211; they were establishing it and asking me to accept it as truth. They were telling me what to say to suit their preconceived agenda.



After they were satisfied that I was not resisting, they brought me down. They tortured the other five boys, most of whom were quick to admit to being cult members to escape the pain of the torture.



We were then asked to write statements, which was further torture for me as my hands and fingers had become numb.



Inside the cell, we were beaten by the other inmates. At night, I could not sleep, not only because I was in pain, but also because there was literally no space to lay my head.



The cell conditions were terrible. Inmates urinated and emptied their bowels at the same place they slept The officers did not care whether we ate or not &#8211; I only drank water, as they didn’t allow my people to bring me food.&nbsp;



All the officers cared about was when our relatives would come to bail us, or if we wanted to make calls to our relatives at a fee they would charge us.



Most people I met in the cell seemed to have stories that suggested they had been wrongly arrested. Some of them told me they had been arrested in place of their sons, whom SARS officers had come in search of and hadn’t found.



I later learned that three of my uncles drove for one hour to the station on the evening of the day of my arrest, but the SARS officers had told them that the officer in charge (OC) was not around. My uncles had to leave and come back again, only to be told the same story. The officers said the OC was yet to return and that it was not possible to obtain bail on a Sunday. My uncles tried again on Monday, then Tuesday, all without success.



One of my uncles lost his cool and threatened to sue unless the officers provided evidence of my cult membership, to which the officers responded by revealing that their OC has miraculously returned.&nbsp;



They asked my family to pay 200,000 naira before they would let me go. My family raised half the sum, but the officers claimed it was not enough, especially as it was a cult case.



After three days of detention, however, the SARS officers accepted the 100,000 naira money and let me go.&nbsp;



Back to a difficult life



I remember my mother crying upon seeing me back at home.



Prior to my arrest, I had been saving up money to buy my own tools to aid me grow out of my apprenticeship to my boss, called Angus Ezenekwe. But my arrest by SARS saw all of those savings being pumped into negotiating my freedom.&nbsp;



Following my injuries from the torture, I was home-ridden for three weeks, unable to work.&nbsp;



In my neighbourhood, people speculated that I was a cultist, after hearing that I had confessed to that effect in SARS custody. They said I was a sheep in wolf’s clothing; a cult member pretending to be a ‘holy boy’.



To clear my name, I had to go to the local government office to get a court affidavit renouncing cultism. But not even this extreme move could change people’s perception of me.&nbsp;



I will never forget what I went through. I doubt if I am over it. SARS had my bdy wounded and my reputation shattered. It was not a funny experience at all.

Framed into a Cultist

A young couple were on the verge of being put together when SARS stepped in and put them asunder.



My name is Afam Ugwunwa, and I never got to marry the woman of my dreams.



On September 6, 2020, I went to the home of my fiancé, Ifeoma Stella Abugu, so she could introduce me to her family. Ifeoma and I had set our wedding for December 2020.&nbsp;&nbsp;



While at home, and as part of preparations for our wedding, Ifeoma decided to paint her family’s house. After that, on September 7, she and I went to Anambra State, my state of origin, around 150 km west of Ugbaike, her village, which is in the southeastern Nigerian state of Enugu.



From there, we both returned to Wumba Village in the Lokogoma area of Nigeria’s capital, Abuja, where we&nbsp; lived.



At 5pm on September 10, three officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) stormed our residence in search of me. They claimed they had come to arrest me because I was into hard drugs.&nbsp;



But I wasn’t home, and so they arrested Ifeoma in my place, despite pleas from concerned neighbours. They then instructed the neighbours to tell me to bring five million naira to ‘Abattoir’ &#8211; a detention facility owned by SARS operatives in Abuja, which had formerly been a <a href="https://twitter.com/amnestynigeria/status/1314594727900123145?lang=en">butchers’ yard</a>.



I was confused, firstly at the SARS officers’ accusation, and then at the fact that they took away my wife-to-be. I did not, and indeed, do not deal in drugs. I sell wigs for a living. If they needed me, they could have just called me without causing trauma to Ifeoma.



The following day, September 11, my brother transferred 500,000 naira to the sister of one of my friends, who took it to SARS at Abattoir to secure Ifeoma’s release.



But this release was not to be.&nbsp;



The SARS operatives told my friend that my Ifeoma had died at the University of Abuja Teaching Hospital in Gwagwalada, on the outskirts of Abuja, that same day &#8211;&nbsp; September 11, 2019.&nbsp;



That day, I lost my senses. My life has not been the same since. SARS took away my 28-year-old fiance just like that.&nbsp;



Of course, I am not the only person who smells a rat. Ifeoma’s big brother, Alex Abugu, also believes Ifeoma was murdered by SARS while in detention.&nbsp;



Alex says his uncle wrote a statement in SARS’ office, after which he (the uncle) was told that SARS had found the matter “too tough”, hence they had transferred it to Apo Police Division, located in a district in Abuja.&nbsp;



Alex was told that the investigating officer in the Apo Police Division went to the hospital and took pictures of Ifeoma’s deceased body in the mortuary. However, Alex’s lawyer, Ifeanyi Cosmas Mamah,&nbsp;had gone to the same mortuary to take pictures and was refused entry.



When confronted, the SARS operatives who carried out Ifeoma’s arrest claimed that they had met her in an unconscious state, with cocaine on her table; and that they only took her to the hospital where she was confirmed dead.&nbsp;



This is a lie &#8211; not least because I say so, but also because there were neighbours who witnessed the whole arrest. The neighbours are very clear on what they saw &#8211; they claim they even made several calls, but the SARS officers refused to let Ifeoma go.&nbsp;



Alex says that a senior SARS official claimed the three officers who took Ifeoma away &#8211; identified as DSP Melai Isaac, Isp. Enlamali Agbede and Sgt. Ezekiel Agbede &#8211; hadn’t sought his permission to carry out the operation. Alex, like me, believes the officer is only trying to save face and evade responsibility, as there is no way those three officers could have embarked on that assignment without his approval.



Since the Apo Police Division didn’t seem to be taking the matter as seriously as expected, Ifeoma’s case was eventually transferred to the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Police Command Headquarters in Garki.&nbsp;



Autopsy controversy



The Commissioner of Police at the FCT Police Command, Bala Ciroma, ordered for an autopsy report to ascertain the cause of Ifeoma’s death.&nbsp;



The SARS officers stood by their story &#8211; that Ifeoma had taken cocaine and that they had only brought her to the hospital.&nbsp;



The doctor at the hospital told them that not only was he going to conduct an autopsy, he would also conduct forensic analysis to determine the actual cause of Ifeoma’s death. This would reveal whether or not Ifeoma had been taking drugs, and how long she had been doing so if she was.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;



Alex says the doctor charged 600,000 naira for the autopsy, and that the three SARS officers involved paid only 450,000 naira of the sum. He also says the doctor told him that he (the doctor) was being put under pressure to conduct the autopsy in favour of SARS, but he (the doctor) reassured Alex that he would do his job justly.&nbsp;



On October 5, nearly one month after Ifeoma’s demise, the result of the autopsy finally came out. Cocaine, as claimed by the SARS officers, wasn’t the cause of death. Torture was.



Alex says his lawyer called the doctor, who asked them to come and collect a copy of the autopsy, which he had signed. Alex rushed to the hospital and called the Investigating Officer to tell him the report was ready. He says the Investigating Officer told him he was already aware the report was done, though he was yet to receive it. He told Alex that he would let him know as soon as he received it.



The Investigating Officer later quietly went to collect the original report without the knowledge of Alex and his lawyer. Till date, the lawyer has not been able to secure the original autopsy report from the police.&nbsp;



Alex and the rest of Ifeoma’s family have vowed to go to court.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, the news of Ifeoma’s death totally broke her mum, Maru Abugu, who had to be told several weeks after it had happened because the family didn’t know how she would take it, especially as&nbsp; Ifeoma was her favourite child. The family eventually got a Catholic Priest in their village to inform Madam Abugu, who is 70 years old. Till date, she weeps at the mention of Ifeoma’s name. Another one of Ifeoma’s relatives collapsed upon hearing the news of her death.&nbsp;



Breadwinner



In 2018, Ifeoma graduated from the Institute of Management and Technology (IMT), a polytechnic college in Enugu city in Nigeria’s southeast. She completed her National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) programme in Abuja in 2019.&nbsp;



We met in the course of her NYSC programme.



Ifeoma was a hairdresser &#8211; and a breadwinning pillar in her family. From the proceeds of her business, she took care of members of her family, most especially by paying the fees of her younger brother, who is studying at a polytechnic. She also took care of her brother Alex’s children, who are in the village.&nbsp;



Ifeoma struggled to finish school to finally get a source of income in order to support her family. She was only getting started.



SARS not only took away my potential life-partner, they took away a whole family’s hope.

Murdered Before the Marriage

The sad story of Emeka Kennedy, who spent over 40 days in SARS detention



On April 12, 2018, I returned to Lagos from a trip to Anambra State, nearly 500km east of Lagos. There was a problem. I could not find my car where I had parked it.



I am Emeka Kennedy, a 35-year-old employee of the Importers Association of Nigeria (IMAN), a non-governmental organization that checks all forms of illegal importation, including small arms and goods.&nbsp;



I had parked my car, a Pathfinder Jeep, at the IMAN office situated in a building that once housed the now-defunct Savannah Bank, at Trade Fair Complex in Lagos. I enquired from the security man at the office about the whereabouts of the car, and was told to go to Trade Fair Police Station, from where some men had come to tow the car.&nbsp;



I rushed to the police station, where I met the Divisional Crime Officer (DCO). The DCO told me that the officers who had towed my car had left instructions: Anybody who came in search of it should be detained. I requested to know the reason behind the order. The DCO had no answers.



I was thus detained, and my property taken away from me. After some hours, four heavy-looking men entered the station. I noted that though the men were not wearing police uniforms, they wore jackets that had Intelligence Response Team (IRT) written on them. Later, I found out that the IRT was collaborating with the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).&nbsp;&nbsp;



The IRT said they understood I had a Toyota Avalon which I’d parked somewhere. I responded in the affirmative. My uncle, Mr. Ozor Kenneth, owned the car, and it had come through Cotonou. I had been the one who had driven the car to Anambra State, where I had parked it for my uncle to collect it. I told the officers that the car had a plate number and its documents were intact.



I was later taken away from Trade Fair Police Station to the Lagos State Police Command, Ikeja where the Commanding Officer (OC) of SARS, Superintendent Philip, held sway.



At the Lagos State Police Command, I wrote a statement, telling the officers everything I knew about the Toyota Avalon. I told them I was not the man of dubious character they had believed I was. The officers weren’t moved. They locked me up in Cell 3, where for one week, I stayed without food or water.



Later, the officers took me to their backyard, where they tied my hands and legs and hung me in the air. They left me hanging for a long time, and when they brought me down, I was so weakened physically that I could barely stand.



Right at the Trade Fair Police Station, the officers had taken away my phone and switched it off. This meant my family was kept in the dark as to where I was and what was happening to me.



The officers kept telling me they would kill me, and I kept praying that I would not die.



Five days later, the officers took me to the backyard and had me hung in the air again. After I was brought down, I could barely maintain my balance; two inmates were called to assist me to get back into his cell.



The days that followed felt to me as if I were in a coma.



When the officers found out that I could raise my hand again, they hung him once more; the third time.&nbsp;



They claimed that the owner of the Toyota Avalon had been killed during an armed robbery operation, and they considered me a suspect. They called me a kidnapper and asked me to provide names of my accomplices.



I told them I was not into crime, and that the only person &#8211; aside from my uncle &#8211; involved in the car deal was the person in Cotonou who had called me to say that the car had left the seaport.



I had, by myself, driven the car from the Seme border to Anambra State.&nbsp;



The officers did not believe me. Rather, they accused me of not being ready to speak the truth.&nbsp;



Later, in the second week of my stay in detention, the four officers who had picked me up from Trade Fair Police Station put me in their vehicle and drove to Anambra State.



At Anambra State, the officers went to Awka Police Station, in the capital city of Anambra,&nbsp; to make their intention of coming to the state known.&nbsp;



I took the officers to the house in Oko town where I had parked the Toyota Avalon. After that, the officers drove back to Badagry, Lagos, where I live.



At Badagry, the officers, already armed with a search warrant, swept through my house. There was no one at home. My wife had travelled with our child to her parents’ in Lagos because of how uncertain things had become. The officers took away everything they could find &#8211; shoes, clothes, and belts.



I spent a month and ten days in detention. May 22, 2018 was the memorable mark of that dark period.



It was after three weeks that the officers asked me to call my relatives. I called my father-in-law, who came running to my rescue.&nbsp;



My father-in-law and the officers started negotiating for my release. Initially, the officers wanted 5 million naira, but they later dropped the amount to 2 million. My father-in-law was still unable to raise that amount of money.&nbsp;



Later, I discovered that my wife usually came to see him, but the officers, especially the Investigating Police Officer (IPO), Sergeant Ermond, would send her away because she did not come with any money.



The cost of transport from Badagry to Ikeja was 800 naira and, due to Lagos’ notorious traffic jams, the journey could linger for several hours.&nbsp;



My sister, who is a lecturer in the Federal Polytechnic in my hometown Oko, got tired of the officers’ shenanigans and, on May 22, 2018, wrote a petition to the then Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Kpotun Idris, in Abuja.



The IGP ordered the officers to transfer the case to Abuja with all the files and everyone who was involved in the case.&nbsp;



Instead of heeding to the IGP’s order, the police officers took me to the Samuel Ilori Magistrate Court in the Ogba suburb of Lagos and slapped me with all manner of charges, including forgery. The judge, suspecting foul play, refused to proceed with the case. She asked them to go and change the charges.



But the officers did not want to change the charges. Later, the IPO came to me and said they would give me bail. All I had to do was to call my people and the matter would go away.



The thing was that everybody knew that the magistrate court couldn’t grant me bail with those charges, but they were able to. The charges were high and I could not perfect it. But the magistrate granted me bail. The charges were high and I could not perfect it. That was why I was on remand.



I was asked to bring two sureties, one relative and non-relative, who were senior-level civil servants; each of them required to deposit 400,000 naira. I was able to get one relative but could not get a non-relative. I thus did not get my freedom.



I was remanded in Kirikiri Medium Prison in Lagos. There, I met criminals. Everyone there prayed for safety.



During my stay there, somebody inside the prison suggested to me that I was supposed to go to the High Court because the officers were afraid of it.&nbsp;



My lawyer and I took my case to the Lagos High Court in Igbosere on Lagos Island. We earned a favourable verdict and I finally became a free man on November 28, 2018.



But that was not the end of my troubles.



When I returned home on November 28 that year, my landlord, with whom I had never previously had any issues, told him to vacate his property. I had an eight-month old baby.&nbsp;



I thus left Lagos on December 15, 2018. I now live in Nkpor, a town in my native state of Anambra.&nbsp;



I am still finding it very difficult to stand as I have lost my friends, my job and my very self.



I started living in Lagos when I was 13. I had my secondary and university education in Lagos. I lived there for years. Do you know what it means for me to change state at this age? Here in Anambra, there is nothing. If we see food, we eat.



I am currently out of work. My last job was driving commuters around in a bus, but the bus broke down and has been left unfixed, neglected by its owners.



Meanwhile, my case has gone cold, too.&nbsp;



When my uncle went to the officers concerning the vehicle, they kept toying with him. The officers asked him if he had gone to see me in jail. They did not believe I had been set free, given the hefty charges they had leveled against me.&nbsp;



My SARs experience changed a lot for me, and this was not a good kind of change. But I believe life goes on nonetheless.&nbsp;



Now, I just need a bus to drive in order to feed my family. I know that will happen soon.

Detained in Hell

Five days to his final University exams, Joseph Ugochukwu found himself in the cruel custody of SARS operatives.



I had just finished saying my morning prayers when I heard knocks on my door.&nbsp;



The day was Wednesday, July 13, 2016.



I am Ugochukwu Joseph, a 29-year-old native of Awgu, a southeastern town in the Awgu Local Government Area of Enugu State. I lived on the Sir Ken Nnamdi Drive, Independence Layout in Enugu, the state’s capital. I was then a final-year student of biochemistry at the Enugu State University of Science and Technology (ESUT), and was preparing to write my final exam on July 18 that year.&nbsp;



When I asked who it was that was knocking on my door, the voice of my friend and schoolmate, Chuka, came through. Calmed by the familiarity, I went and opened the door.&nbsp;



I found out however, to my dismay, that Chuka was not alone. Standing with him were four mean-looking men wielding guns. One of the men introduced himself as Ekpe and said he and the other three men were officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).&nbsp;



Ekpe asked me if I knew Chuka. I admitted that I did. Ekpe then asked me to get dressed and follow them to the SARS station. He seized my laptop, which I was then using to write my final-year degree project.



I pleaded with Ekpe to allow me to make some calls, but he refused and switched off my phone.&nbsp;



I followed the men and Chuka to the station in Golf Estate, within Enugu city.



At the station, Ekpe gave me a sheet of paper and asked me to write a statement. I started writing.&nbsp; Unknown to me, Ekpe stood behind me and peeked at everything I wrote.



At a point, Ekpe called my attention and asked me to stop writing. He told me to write that I was a kidnapper and an armed robber.&nbsp;



I got angry and told Ekpe to allow me to write my statement, unless he did not want me to write it myself, as he had initially asked, anymore.



Ekpe flared up. He snatched the sheet of paper from me, reached for a big stick, and used it to hit me several times.&nbsp;



He beat me so much that I injured my hand &#8211; afterwards I could barely pick up or hold onto stuff..&nbsp;



After the beating, I was told to undress. I obeyed, stripping till I was only in my boxer shorts. I was then thrown into a cell.



Backstory



A week before my arrest, on July 6, 2016, I had accompanied Chuka to the bank to make a transaction. A friend of ours, Ifeanyi, had come to my house with a car, and together, the three of us had driven to the bank. On arrival at the bank, another friend of Chuka, Ikechukwu, met us. He too, like Chuka, had come to withdraw money.&nbsp;



At first I wanted to wait outside until they were all done, but I later joined them inside the bank. After some time, I left them and went back outside.&nbsp;



Ikechukwu called and told me they were having issues with making their transactions. I then went back into the bank to find out what the problem was. There, I discovered that the account they wanted to withdraw from was locked, ‘probably because of security issues’.



On our way out of the bank, one of the security men attached to the bank, who knew Chuka, told him that they would have to come back and settle the issue later. Chuka told me that he believed the security man wanted them to return and settle (parlance for bribery) the police because of their case.



I had asked Chuka in annoyance why the police needed to be settled when the issue was a bank issue and not a police one. Chuka said nothing.



After Chuka and Ifeanyi did not show up at the bank again, SARS operatives were used to lure them out and arrest them on the evening of July 12, 2016.&nbsp;



That was how the investigation eventually became a knock on my door earlier that morning.



Detained



On the morning of July 14, 2016, my father came into Enugu from Awgu. He called my phone but it was switched off. He did not know where I lived. That was his first time visiting me.



He called my younger brother, who in turn called my girlfriend. My girlfriend went to my house, where the neighbours told her I had been arrested. One of the neighbours told her that Ekpe, who was popular around our area, was one of the SARS officers who had arrested me.



That same day, my father rushed to the SARS office. An officer told him that there was nobody that met the description of ‘Joseph Ugochukwu’ in SARS custody. My father even mentioned my nickname to the officer, but the officer insisted there was no such person in the station. My father then went back to Awgu, a 40-minute taxi drive from the city of Enugu.&nbsp;



The next day, July 15, 2016, my father returned to the SARS station with Caeser, one of my neighbours, in tow. The officers initially did not want to let them in, but after much begging from both of them, the officers eventually gave in.



Caesar told Ekpe that he was my neighbour and had seen him (Ekpe) when he arrested me. The officers brought me out from the cell.



My father asked the officers how much money he would have to pay to bail me. They said he would have to pay 300,000 naira.&nbsp;



It was a huge sum for my father, who pleaded for a reduction, saying that he could only afford 50,000 naira. The officers did not accept it.



My father was troubled because of my forthcoming final-year exams, which I had to sit for to graduate and receive a degree certificate. Apart from my safety, his years of investment in me was on the line. And so he continued to beg the officers, hoping they would be moved. But they insisted the least amount they would collect was 250,000 naira. My father gave up the negotiation and left in search of the money.



Meanwhile, Ifeanyi’s family soon came and paid 250,000 naira for his bail.&nbsp;



Chuka’s family, too, were there, and they also paid 250,000 naira to secure his release.



My father later returned to the station with the money that evening for mine.&nbsp;



My two-day stay in the cell was terrible. Someone had advised me to have money on me before going into a cell, in the range of a thousand naira, because I would need it there to save me from being bullied by inmates. While I escaped being beaten, I wasn’t spared ‘mounting the wall’, which is cell parlance for the act of facing the wall and acting like one is climbing it.&nbsp;



Chuka wasn’t as lucky as I was. When he came into the cell the previous day, July 12, he had no money, and was well-beaten. His eyes remained red from the hurt for over two weeks.&nbsp;



I however got some beating of my own later on from Ekpe and his wicked officers, who tortured me for ten minutes while ordering me to provide the contact details of Ikechukwu. I kept telling them I did not know Ikechukwu and had indeed never met him. At a point, I literally wet my pants out of fear.



I remember the depressing scenes in custody. There were three cells in the station. Cell 3 was the biggest while Cell 1 and 2 were the size of toilets. I was in Cell 3, which had more than thirty inmates who slept on each other at night due to the limited space. The cell’s floor was gummy with blood. The bodies of some inmates had started to decay. I remember this inmate who was paralyzed and was seated in the same position where he urinated and defecated.&nbsp;



There was this night when the inmates in my cell started singing and shouting. Their voices grew so loud that the SARS officers felt they were planning to break out of the cell.&nbsp;



The SARS officers began shooting the wall from the opposite side of the cell. For more than twenty minutes, the sounds of the guns rang out. Soon, the inmates stopped singing, but the SARS officers kept on shooting. But for the impenetrable nature of the wall, the bullets would have hurt or even killed some of us.



Throughout my stay, I did not have a bath and did not eat &#8211; even when I requested for the food.



An interesting thing I observed was the concept of the messenger-inmate. This was an inmate who ran errands for all other inmates. He mostly slept in the hallway, rather than in a cell. As an inmate, if you needed anything, he was your guy &#8211; and he would earn commission on every errand. The messenger-inmate had spent two whole years in the cell and thus considered the place as his home. Even more interesting was the fact that he had come in when he was 14 years old. He was the one who would receive food from the relatives and friends of inmates and bring it to them.



From what I saw and experienced, I am convinced most people in SARS custody are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Some had been arrested because someone paid SARS officers to arrest them, probably because they owed them money.&nbsp;



When I finally got home after my bail, my father bought me some drugs. My brother also gave me a new towel. I was able to take my bath &#8211; and with hot water. My family decided to burn the clothes I’d worn to the cell &#8211; they just didn’t want to see me wear them again.&nbsp;



Throughout the days I wrote my final exams at the University, I battled depression as an after-effect of my SARS ordeal. I was spiritless, and barely managed to get by. Studying became difficult as I could hardly concentrate. I would have occasional flashbacks while studying. I would see sights and sounds from the cells which would get me angry, sometimes to the point of dropping my book. It was only by the grace of God that I managed to pass that exam.



Socially, my life changed &#8211; in school and at home. As the class representative of my class on campus, I felt really ashamed knowing everyone had heard about my arrest and detention. I avoided social gatherings, eventually becoming a recluse. Some of my family members too began to see me in a different light, as they concluded that my arrest meant I had started engaging in vices. My neighbours would also cast suspicious looks at me. It really did take a while for things to normalize again.



My life has changed &#8211; and it does feel as if it has done so for the worst. There is more tension and less freedom. There is a lot of caution and fear. I have been forced to be very intentional about my every move and every phone call. I have become very defensive. I have become very insecure.



Twice shy



I remember an incident in Onitsha, a southeastern town in Anambra State &#8211; which turned out to be my second run-in with SARS officers. It happened in October 2019. That afternoon, a friend and I had come out of the Federal Housing Estate there and entered a Keke, a three-wheeled tricycle. Unknown to us, SARS officers were tailing our ride.&nbsp;



As we got to a place where the road was sloppy and deserted, the SARS officers double-crossed us. They were three in number. They drove a Toyota Hilux.&nbsp;



The SARS officers told my friend and I to hand over our phones. When we refused, the officers threatened to shoot us &#8211; and they arrogantly claimed there would be no consequence for them if they did. We immediately quit arguing with them.&nbsp;



They took us to the Central Police Station, Onitsha. There, they called us ‘bad boys’ and threatened to lock us up in a cell.



My friend asked the officers what we had to do to be set free. The officers told us to pay 50,000 naira each. We told them we could only pay 5,000 naira. The officers refused to accept that. After many negotiations, we agreed to pay them 15,000 naira each.



The SARS officers refused an online transfer; they said they wanted the money in cash. (Online transfers via mobile applications or USSD codes can be easily traced, thus making it easy to trace and find SARS officers who extort or harass people for money).&nbsp;



The officers seized our phones and ordered us to go to a nearby POS machine and withdraw the money.&nbsp;



My friend withdrew the money, came back to the station and paid the SARS officers. We were then set free. It was already evening.



Anti-SARS



I am now a proud anti-SARS advocate. Those officers are dangerous, and I cannot hide my dislike for them. They have way too much power, and this has caused citizens &#8211; especially the youth &#8211; to live in constant fear.&nbsp;



I think SARS officers need rehabilitation before they are reintegrated back into society, simply because they have a strange lust for blood.

Suffering  Before a Test

Falsely accused of being a cultist, Ezeanozie Obinna narrates his harrowing ordeal in the hands of SARS, who hung him up and tortured him until he “slumped to the ground like a lifeless chicken”.



Hi. Ezeanozie Obinna here. I’m 24, and I’m a panel beater.



My SARS story, like many others, started at dawn &#8211; and with a bang. It was 2 a.m. on May 23, 2020. I was jolted from sleep after hearing a bang at the gate that leads into my compound, which is in the southeastern town of Ekwulobia, Anambra State.



Sitting on my bed, I stared through the window and saw someone jump into the compound through the fence. Another bang sounded at the backyard door. My dog started barking into the night air.&nbsp;



Soon, a knock sounded at the door of my bedroom. The intruder was now at my doorstep.



It turned out not to be just an intruder, but intruders &#8211; six of them, in fact, scary men all wielding guns. I asked who they were and what the matter was. They said nothing was amiss, and that they were security operatives. I was angered, as I wondered what manner of security operatives would appear at a person’s house when it was past midnight. I immediately assumed they were local security men who had come to collect security fees or fines from those who were yet to pay.&nbsp;



But the men told me they were members of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).&nbsp;



They asked me to come with them &#8211; telling me to put on clothes and bring my phone along. I pleaded with them to allow me to call someone so I could inform them of what was happening to me, but the men refused me the opportunity and dragged me out of the room.&nbsp;



Outside, the men led me to a parked Toyota Hilux. They asked me to give them five names of people who were cultists. Perplexed, I asked why they would demand such from me when I was neither a cultist nor someone who knew anything about cultism.



In the Hilux, I saw other people the SARS officers had arrested. The officers threw me into their midst. I asked the other ‘arrestees’ if a robbery operation had happened somewhere. They had no clue. Like me, they had been forced out of their houses without knowing what was happening.&nbsp;



After some time, the officers brought two of the arrestees out of the Hilux and ordered them to confess names of cultists. The men said they had no idea. They were shoved back into the car by the officers.&nbsp;



We were all driven to the SARS station at Nnewi, a large town in Anambra State.&nbsp;



We reached Nnewi at about 4 a.m.&nbsp;



At the station, we were asked to call family members to update them on our whereabouts. I called my parents.



Later, everyone of us was questioned, one after the other. The predominant question was whether we were cultists.



I maintained my stance: I was not a cultist, and I knew nothing about cultism.



For that answer, I suffered the same fate suffered by those who had denied being cultists: my hands and legs were tied behind my back and a rod inserted in between. I hung in the air, my face staring at the ground. Then the SARS officers began hitting me with sticks.&nbsp;



During the torture, I started to cry. It was unbearable. The SARS officers took a break, sat in a corner, and sipped on alcoholic drinks and gin.&nbsp;



“It’s time you speak the truth,” one of them bellowed to me. After drinking, one of the officers stood and resumed the torturing &#8211;&nbsp; raiding my body with blows. There was one blow which almost got my entire waist dismantled. I kept screaming in pain, and my tears kept flowing. Those tears could have filled two full buckets. I was an absolute wreck.



But there was no pity for me. I was left to hang for almost two hours, receiving beatings in between, soaking in the pain and letting out the tears, all while pleading with them to believe my innocence in the issue of cultism.&nbsp;



Soon afterwards, when one of the SARS officers came and untied me, I remember slumping to the ground like a lifeless chicken.



The officer who had untied me told me to go to where the other officers were. I told him I lacked the strength to do so, and so pleaded for help. The officer ignored.



I later found a stick and slowly used it to support myself out.



At about 7 a.m. that same day, the SARS commandant there came and asked the arrestees some questions bordering on the cult group they accused us of belonging to and the names of the other members of that group.&nbsp;



I was given a piece of paper and told to write that I was a cultist.&nbsp;



After that, the officers collected our phones, clothes, and shoes and led Obinna us into a cell, where we were all subjected to various degrees of bullying at the hands of old inmates.



We were given a series of punishments like ‘mounting the wall’ and ‘picking pin’. ‘Mounting the wall’ meant facing the wall and pretending to climb it. ‘Picking pin’ meant hanging one leg in the air and pointing one finger to the ground.&nbsp; As we ‘performed’ the punishments, the inmates hit us with sticks. If the inmates discovered any of us was tired, they would tell the person to sit close to the bucket that was used to collect urine. Only those who promised to give the old inmates money were spared. If family visited and you couldn’t get money from them for the older inmates, they (older inmates) would beat you up.



I took a lot of beating in the cell and stayed quiet about it because I barely had the strength to resist or complain.



The cell was small and full of people. We were not given food &#8211; I only ate when friends and families of other inmates came bearing food.



At about 8 a.m., one of the SARS officers came into the cell and asked who Ezeanozie Obinna was. I answered. The officer told me to come out. I did.&nbsp;



At that moment, I remembered that an inmate had warned me that if the officers came in and called my name, I should not answer because it was believed they called out inmates to kill them. This information suddenly dawned on me as I walked out, and I remember tears beginning to well up in my eyes once again.&nbsp;



But it would all turn out to be good news. The SARS officer led me to the counter, where he told me that they (SARS officers) had received a call from a Divisional Police Officer (DPO) who wanted them to release me. The DPO had told them that I was not a cultist. The DPO was my neighbour, whom my parents had reported my arrest to.&nbsp;



The SARS officer apologized to me, saying that if he were around when his colleagues had brought me in, he would have questioned them. He said he had travelled and had not returned on time. He gave my belongings back to me and told me to go home, six hours after I had been arrested.



I was free, but I was weak, and to add insult to injury, did not have a single naira in my pocket to go home.



I sat on the stairs of the station and wept. I hoped any of the SARS officers would give me money to transport myself back home, but no one gave me a dime.



Later, one of the SARS officers pushed me out of the station, offering deaf ears to my explanation of not having money to return home. I looked weak and wretched, and wondered if any driver would risk allowing me to join his car.



I went out and stood by the gate of the station. Then I began acting like a gateman, opening the gate for whoever came in and went out, hoping that someone would notice me and give me money.



A man who happened to be the brother of one of the arrestees saw me at the gate and asked what the problem was. I told the man that I had suffered the same fate as his (the man’s) brother. After the man had secured the release of his brother, I followed both of them. Coincidentally, they also lived in Ekwulobia.



The two men were astonished to learn that I had not paid money for my release. With SARS, people are priced like goods. Relatives and friends of those arrested always pay huge sums to secure the release of their loved ones &#8211; something that feels like a ransom.&nbsp;



The officers would ask for, say, 100,000 naira, and if you say you do not have that amount, they would tell you to go home and come the next day.&nbsp;



Though I was lucky to escape paying an expensive sum for my release, I couldn’t escape paying a lot of money to treat the injuries and wounds I sustained from the torturing. I spent almost all my money on my hands and legs. My hands for instance felt leaden, costing me work in the process. At a point, even feeding myself became a problem. For three weeks, I could not do anything.



Interestingly, my parents, who live with me, later told me they had not been aware of the time the SARS officers had come to take me away. It was after I called them that they found my door wide open. They then enquired from neighbours, who told them what had happened.&nbsp;



They keep telling me they thank God I came out of that station alive.



I thank God, too.

Accused and Abused

When SARS officers inexplicably arrested Ugochukwu Oraefo, the 34-year-old sought to know what his crime was; yet what he got as a response from the vicious officers was a traumatic experience that took four days of hospitalization to recover from.



In the morning hours of April 30, 2018, three heavy-looking men in a Toyota Camry 2.2 stormed my ALUCOBEST Aluminum Store in the southeastern Nigerian town of Ogidi. The men wielded AK-47 rifles.&nbsp;



I am Ugochukwu Oraefo. I am 34, and a father of five children. I sell aluminium roofing sheets, metra roofing sheets, stone-coated roofing tiles and other kinds of roofing materials.&nbsp;&nbsp;



That fateful day two years ago, I was in my store with my wife. The men wielding the guns told me they were police officers. They asked me to act as if I knew them and follow them, else they would disgrace me. I was confused, so I refused. I asked to know if anyone had written a petition against me. They said they would tell me everything I needed to know only if I would enter their car.&nbsp;



It all sounded fishy, so I refused &#8211;&nbsp; again.



Later, the three men identified themselves as officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Awkuzu, a town in the southeastern Nigerian state of Anambra. When I continued to insist on not following them, they began to assault me with their guns.&nbsp;



Soon, concerned people gathered. They asked what the problem was, but the SARS officers did not say what offence I had committed. Instead, they said anybody who wanted to know what my offence was would have to follow them to their office. I told the crowd that I had refused to follow the men because for all I knew, they could be kidnappers.



I asked for an arrest warrant, but the SARS officers sarcastically asked whether I thought I was the governor of Anambra State, Willie Obiano, for me to think they needed to obtain a warrant from me.



“We will kill you if you&nbsp; f**k up,” they threatened.



I told them that it was better for them to kill me there, in the presence of onlookers, than to take me away and kill me anyhow they wanted, in the presence of no one. By that, I seemed to have angered them the more, because they started beating me again.&nbsp;



One of the SARS officers told me he was a soldier, claiming that what they were doing was ‘teamwork’. I asked what this supposed ‘teamwork’ was, but they only continued to beat me.&nbsp;



Later, the SARS officers gave me their phone and asked that I speak with their Officer in Charge (OC).



I had taken a sound beating by then and was not exactly in the mood to speak, but I pulled myself together and asked the OC what my offence was. The OC told me to stop asking “stupid” questions and just follow his men. I stood my ground and refused to comply, insisting that the OC let everyone know the offence they were claiming I had committed. The OC told me to return the phone to his men. I did as I was told. Unfortunately, the men resumed beating me.



After some time, I began to cave in. I asked my wife to call my lawyer, Justus Ijeoma. Ijeoma asked her to give the phone to the SARS officers, but they refused to speak to him. When the officers noticed I was not willing to follow them unless they spoke to Ijeoma, they asked my wife to call him again. She did. This time, the officers told Ijeoma who they were, and he agreed for me to follow them.



When we reached the SARS office, the officers threatened me. They said they would ‘treat’ my stubbornness.&nbsp;



They later took me to the backyard of their office. There, they tied my hands and legs behind my back, then they brought out a metal rod, which they put between my bound hands and legs. They placed two heavy concrete blocks on my back, before hanging me up.



They said they would ‘deal’ with me because I was ‘spoiling’ their ‘show’; whatever that meant. They later asked me how much I was willing to give for my freedom. It was this request for a bribe that got me convinced I had indeed been kidnapped.&nbsp;



Burdened by the discomfort, I asked them how much they wanted. I don’t remember much of what happened afterward, because I passed out from being hanged for a long time. They eventually brought me down and untied me, taking me to a cell.



In the evening of that same day, they brought me out and asked if I was ready to tell them how much I wanted to pay.



I asked them again to tell me what crime I had committed at least.&nbsp;



“You still want to know what your offence is?!” they responded rudely. “Okay! No problem.”&nbsp;



I broke into tears at that point. I was tired of it all. I pleaded with them to let me know how much they wanted so everything would come to an end.



The SARS officers said they wanted 20 million naira. I offered to give them two million. They weren’t pleased. They mocked my offer, asking me if I thought I had come to their station to sell crayfish.&nbsp;



As the negotiations continued, and with some of their colleague officers there calling me a criminal, the SARS officers took me back to the backyard and threatened to tie me up again. I pleaded and promised to increase the money to three million naira.&nbsp;



Mind you, during the entire period, the SARS officers did not allow anybody to visit me. My wife continued to run my shop while waiting for my lawyer to return.&nbsp;



The officers, at a point, threatened to kill me, believing that I was not willing to pay the money they were demanding.&nbsp;



They asked for my account number and I provided it. They then took me back to my cell.



The next day, they brought me out. They asked me if I wanted to ‘die’ in their station. I kept pleading. The officers remained unmoved.



On the third day of my detention, which was May 2nd, the three SARS officers that arrested me told me they were going to take me to an undisclosed location where they would ‘kill’ me for being difficult about giving in to their demand. I was blindfolded, handcuffed and driven away.



The drive took almost an hour. When the car stopped, the SARS officers brought me down and, still able to see slightly through the blindfold, I realized the place was in neighbouring Delta State, given the inscriptions on the signboards I was slightly able to see.



I also saw a pit filled with water, which one of the three officers asked me to move close to. The other officers were pointing their guns at me. The commanding officer asked why I did not want to give them money. “I’ve given my account number,” I responded desperately. “I don’t have up to 20 million naira.”



I asked them why they wanted to kill me, but they still wouldn’t tell me what I’d done. They only said they were ready to ‘finish’ me.&nbsp;



The commanding officer instructed the other officers to shoot me on the count of three. I was broken at this point. I wept. I begged. I asked them to take all the money in my account and spare my life. All I had then was five million naira.



The officers, though, insisted they would still kill me &#8211; but that they would take the money as well.



On the commanding officer’s count of three, I shut my eyes and heard the sound of gunshots.



I regained consciousness to find out it had been a mock execution.



They took me back to their station, where one of the officers asked if I knew where I was. “Yes, Sir,” I remember responding.



Another popped up and said he wanted&nbsp; to ‘finish’ me,&nbsp; but their commanding officer, Sunday Okpe, asked them to&nbsp; bring me to him. Okpe asked the officers to leave after they brought me to him.



After I took a seat, Okpe asked how much money I was going to give him so he could save me from the grips of his men. I told him that apart from promising his men that I was willing to give them all the money in my account, I did not know what to do again.



Okpe wasn’t moved. He insisted I give him “something tangible” so he could persuade his men to leave me alone. When I said I could only provide 200,000 naira to that effect, he took offence and ordered me out of his office.



Worried that I had blown a good opportunity to secure my freedom, I began to negotiate.



I told him I would make it 500,000 naira. He refused. I upped it to one million, telling him I would find out if my workers had cash in the office so I could access it.



He seemed okay with it and ordered me to make sure the money was brought to his office physically, as against a transfer.



He then freed me so I could go and arrange the money.



On Saturday, May 5, 2018, I went to see the SARS officers. I went in the company of the father of an apprentice at my shop, who also brought one Andrew Modili, a local politician who wields some influence in our area. The officers told us to transfer five million naira into the account of Modili.&nbsp;



I honestly do not know how Modili later settled the SARS officers after we sent the money to his account. The officers did not allow anyone else to see them apart from Modili.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, the officers took me to see Okpe, who asked to know how he would receive his agreed fee of one million naira. I promised him I would bring the money to his office on Monday, given the fact that his workers were closing for the day and the next day was set to be a Sunday.&nbsp;



Okpe told me that he would let me pay on Monday, May 7, because of Modili’s intervention.&nbsp; He then warned: “No ear must hear what has happened. Otherwise I will finish your family, your entire generation and everything you have.”



I promised to do as agreed.



At home, I did not confide in my wife concerning my ordeal at the hands of the SARS operatives. I also kept away from her the amount of money&nbsp; I had invested in my freedom. I was afraid that if I did, she would tell others out of concern, which would have led to the news spreading.&nbsp;



I also did not confide Ijeoma, my lawyer, who at that time was outside Nigeria. I believe that if I had told him everything, he would have called the SARS officers to demand a refund &#8211; which would have put me at risk, as the officers could make a move to hurt me before he (Ijeoma) returned from his trip.



I planned to tell Ijeoma everything when he returned, as I wanted the SARS officers to pay me back in damages.&nbsp;



On the morning of May 7, 2018, I went to the SARS office and gave one million naira to Sunday Okpe, as agreed.



Pleased that I had fulfilled my promise, Okpe gave me his phone number, claiming that we were now friends, and that I should call him anytime. He said he wondered how I had been in Anambra for years and not heard of him. He promised to offer me ‘protection’ from trouble. I told him that I was not a criminal; that I was engaged in a genuine, legitimate business, and so I did not expect to run into any trouble.



Okpe later told me I was ‘lucky’, and that I ought to thank my God, because he had planned to pursue my family at my house and take everything I own.



He told me he had heard I was a cultist, but I told him it was a lie, and that I know only God. He then revealed that SARS had looked for me in several locations to arrest me, but had not succeeded. He said they had monitored me at my store so many times. He also said he was the one who had guaranteed his men that my store was the best place to capture him.



After two months, my lawyer Ijeoma returned. I told him everything that had happened.&nbsp;



When he asked why I hadn&#8217;t told him all that had happened, I told him I feared nothing but talk would have come out of it. I was aware of many people SARS had killed, whose families were yet to receive compensation.



My lawyer and I wrote a petition to the Inspector General of Police (IGP) in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital. The SARS officers were summoned to the headquarters of the police for questioning, where they accepted they had collected six million naira from me. They refunded the money after a month, thankfully.



I later sued them for damages. But they never showed up.



I believe the government does not hold SARS accountable because they work for the government.&nbsp;



My experience with SARS messed me up. I spent four days in the hospital in order to recover from the physical and psychological trauma I underwent in their custody. My legs and hands felt alien to me from all that beating.&nbsp;



Life afterwards was tough. Some of my store customers stopped patronizing my business after they had heard about my arrest and detention, never bothering to find out what my supposed crime was. Some concluded I was a thief, while others believed I was a kidnapper. My reputation was torn to shreds.



You know, people who are arrested by SARS officers are often painted black as kidnappers and armed robbers by the public, but I believe the real kidnappers and armed robbers are the SARS officers themselves, who have poisoned Ogidi and Anambra State as a whole with their intimidation of innocent people. They are heartless criminals who are worse than the criminals they claim to pursue.



I am an honest businessman. I don’t steal. If I were doing something bad, I would have gone somewhere to hide.&nbsp;



Imagine what would have become of my five children if anything unfortunate had happened to me in SARS custody. They wanted to kill me, or at worst, make me suffer poverty so my life would be ruined.&nbsp;



Thank God for saving me from their hands. It is they and their families who will suffer.

“They Said They Would Kill Me And They Almost Did.”

When a final-year student found himself in trouble with his University authorities, little did he know the case would eventually draw in SARS and garner national attention.



I was tired, waiting for sleep, but it was trouble that came to me.



Officers of the Inspector-General of Police (IGP) tactical squad from Abuja stormed my family residence in Warri, a city in southern Nigeria’s Delta State. It was 6:30 a.m on Saturday, January 19, 2019. The officers had come to arrest me.



When my surprised father asked the officers about the crime I had committed, the officers accused me of kidnapping Prof. Chuks E. Ezedum, the Vice-Chancellor (VC) of Madonna University. Madonna University is a private Catholic university located in the southeastern town of Okija in the Ihiala Local Government Area of Anambra State.



My name is Amaechi Benedict, a 23-year-old graduate. My SARS story occurred during my final year as a&nbsp; Mass Communication student at Madonna University.&nbsp;



Earlier, in November 2018, I was among five students and a lecturer who came under fire for, according to the university’s petition to the Inspector-General of Police, tarnishing the reputation of the university on the Internet.&nbsp;



In my specific case, I was the production manager of Vox Madonna Magazine, the school magazine. Popular Nigerian blogger Linda Ikeji had broken a story about the poor structures of the institution. The management of the school had wondered who had leaked the story to Linda Ikeji. They then turned their attention to me, believing my role as a production manager meant I had ties with the blogger.&nbsp;



But I did not have any ties with Linda Ikeji &#8211; and indeed, still do not.



The lecturer, the other five students and I were arrested and slapped with the same accusation: kidnapping the VC of Madonna University, <a href="https://www.thisdaylive.com/index.php/2019/07/03/the-injustice-against-madonna-seven/">according to local media</a>.&nbsp;&nbsp;



The officers took the seven of us to the Central Police Station (CPS), Onitsha in Anambra State, where we spent 31 days in a cell without being charged to court.&nbsp;



I do not understand why we spent that number of days in police custody, only that the police kept claiming they were investigating the matter.



In those 31 days, I did not have my bath or brush my teeth. We were congested in one small cell. It was hellish.



Eventually, the officers took the other six persons and I to the Federal High Court, Awka, Anambra’s state capital. But the judge told the police to return to CPS because he did not understand the case as it was not properly presented.&nbsp;



At CPS, the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) refused to accept us back into the station. The DPO had reconsidered his stance: he wondered why the officers had kept ‘children’ in prison for 31 days without charging them to court; and so he no longer wanted to be a part of breaking the law.



The police officers took us to the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) station in Awkuzu, a town in the Oyi Local Government Area of Anambra State, which is near Delta state. At Awkuzu SARS, a place meant for hardened criminals, the Investigating Police Officer (IPO) of the tactical squad (named ‘Okonta’) wrote in the charge sheet that we (the six persons and I) were kidnappers.



We ended up spending one week at Awkuzu SARS, where I had an experience I have never had in my whole life.



In the duration of my stay at Awkuzu SARS, I remember eating only two small blocks of Okpa (a traditional Nigerian meal made with Bambara flour, popular in the eastern parts of the country) and drinking four sachets of water, popularly known in Nigeria as ‘Pure Water’.&nbsp;



The cell was depressing. Torture was the culture, from both inmates and officers. The ground was sticky with the blood of people who had either been shot or were injured. The cell was crowded with prisoners, and it was in that same small blood-filled space where everyone ate, urinated and defecated. No one bathed in the cell.



The SARS officers had a torture technique dubbed ‘hanging’. They would bind the hands and legs of inmates to their backs and place a rod in between, lifting and leaving them to suspend in the air.&nbsp;



Some inmates, especially those they called ‘Boss’, physically attacked fellow inmates. The ‘Bosses’ would also snatch food meant for other inmates. There were times I thought I would die out of hunger. It was really tough.



I also noticed SARS officers smuggling hard drugs into the cells for inmates. To make matters worse, extrajudicial killings seemed to be normal too. I remember a time when I heard gunshots inside the compound of the station. Somebody then shouted, “They don kill am! (They have killed him)” I was later told that happenings like that were not unusual, as SARS officers would come into a cell and call out a person’s name &#8211; with the next thing heard being a gunshot, and the person called never returning to the cell.



All through my stay at Awkuzu SARS, I never saw my parents. After I came out, I asked my parents whether they had been visiting the station, and they confirmed they had been coming, except they were not allowed to see me. They also brought food on each occasion which never got to me. It was clear the SARS officers were not only killing and torturing and extorting and blocking visitors, they were also intercepting food meant for inmates.&nbsp;



Before we (the six and I) were charged to court on Feb. 18, 2019,&nbsp; Madonna University changed the charges of multiple kidnapping into cybercrime and malicious writing.



I felt indifferent about the change of the charges. Knowing the kind of country Nigeria is, where investigations move at a snail’s pace, a charge of kidnapping might have kept me and the other six persons in prison for two years, awaiting trial.



I believe the owner of Madonna University, Father Emmanuel M. P. Edeh, a 73-year-old Nigerian Roman Catholic priest, had planned to keep the six persons and I in prison for two years. Father Edeh used the police, who were always at his disposal, to intimidate us. You know how people with money control structures in our corrupt system. Family and friends who had gone to beg Father Edeh on our behalf reported his adamance to set us free.



Our arrest and subsequent detention sparked an online movement, with the #FreeMadonaSevennow campaign trending on Twitter. Movements like the #TakeItBackMovement were at the forefront of the struggle to regain freedom for us. The #FreeMadonaSevenNow campaign began in early July that year after the National Association of Nigerian Students protested at the premises of the court in Awka.



If it hadn’t been for the story of our arrest trending online, the six persons and I would still be in the custody of SARS.



At the Federal High Court in Awka, Justice Babatunde Quadri, the presiding judge, on July 3, 2019, set bail for us at one million naira each and provision of a senior-level&nbsp;civil servant with landed properties. After the court hearing, the seven of us were remanded in Akwa Prison.



With the help of family and friends, the seven of us fulfilled our bail conditions.



But there was a snag: the prosecution team, led by Austin N. Oboh, made it impossible to secure bail.&nbsp; When the court told us to go and verify the sureties, we came back to court after having failed to verify them, with the letters also unsigned.&nbsp;



Because of this, the seven of us had to spend months in prison.



I remember Justice Babatunde Quadri being fond of missing court hearings. I counted about four sessions he missed.



It was on July 3, 2019, two days after our case started trending on Twitter, that the judge finally flew from Abuja and ordered our immediate release.&nbsp;



The seven of us were officially released on July 4, 2020, at 11:13 a.m.&nbsp;



I was happy when we were released. Before then, I had heard that the National Association of Nigerian Students, led by the Vice-President, National Affairs, Chidi Ilozobe, had staged a protest in support of us and I looked forward to reading what the national dailies had to say about the case.



After our release, several peace talks were held to resolve the matter.&nbsp;



The VC of Madonna University asked the six persons and I to apologize to the school so that our results would be released to enable us to enrol on our National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) program. The VC asked us to hold him by his words.



After another peace meeting held at the Maria Assumpta Cathedral in Owerri, Imo State’s capital city, involving Madonna University’s Deputy VC, Very Rev. Fr. Dr Ralph Madu, and the school’s registrar, Fr. Dr Oliver Udaya,&nbsp; the seven of us apologized.



On July 23, 2020, after 17 months of trial, Justice Babatunde Quadri struck out the case from his court.



Like my colleagues, I am free, but I am yet to heal. My stay at Awkuzu SARS was the most horrible experience I have ever had in life.

A Final Year to Forget

The sun was shining, it was a friday  and  officers of the notorious and now disbanded  anti robbery squad,  SARS officers stormed Eric Okwaji´s neighbourhood in Ajegunle, a working class area in Lagos. They were on a mission to arrest a suspect.  Tragically, Okwaji, somehow ended up getting caught in the operations.  It is almost 7 years to the day and Okwaji remains disappeared.



Eric Okwaji spotted a gold-painted Sienna car parked in front of his residence at Nosamu Street, Ajegunle Apapa, Lagos.&nbsp;



Mr. Okwaji, 34, who shared his residence with some friends, asked for the car to be moved because it was blocking movement. Though the car was eventually moved, so was the body of Mr. Okwaji &#8211; badly beaten and unconscious.&nbsp;



It was late morning on September 17, 2014.



Later information revealed that the car parked in front of Eric’s house was being used by men of the erstwhile Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS).&nbsp;



The SARS operatives had been in Mr. Okwaji’s neighbourhood to make an arrest close by, at 39 Nosamu Street. They had ransacked the house at that address, which they believed was the family home of their target, known as ‘Popo’. The SARS men did not find Popo. He apparently did not even live there.



Whatever intelligence the SARS operatives had received about Popo’s location had been misleading. They were frustrated by their failed arrest, so when they heard Mr. Okwaji ask for their car to be moved, it ticked them off.



“Their next action was to vehemently descend on Eric with serious anger,” Bosah Emeka, the coordinator of Ajeromi Ifelodun, recorded in a letter sent to the Onikan office of the assistant Inspector General of Police.&nbsp;



The aggression the SARS operatives had reserved for the Popo arrest was poured out on poor Mr. Okwaji, who they beat to the point of unconsciousness.&nbsp;



Pleas by community residents for them to exercise restraint were ignored. Mr. Okwaji’s battered body was then thrown into the back of the Sienna car, which sped off.&nbsp;



It’s been six years since the car disappeared into the distance.



Family and friends of Mr. Okwaji, as well as residents of Ajegunle Apapa in Lagos, have since not seen or heard from the young man.



The search&nbsp;



One of the men who participated in the brutal violence against Mr. Okwaji, gave his name as Sergeant Samuel C.Y. He left a mobile number, asking for any enquiries about the condition and whereabouts of Mr. Okwaji to be directed to him.&nbsp;



But each time a family member or neighbor called, he asked for money to be paid before he could give out any information. He hardly did.



“When we called him for the release of Eric, he demanded N400, 000,” Lawrence Macaulay, Mr. Okwaji’s father, said. “We begged him but he did not listen.”&nbsp;



Once Mr. Macaulay, a retired civil servant, realized he could not raise the bribe demanded, he set out on his own, visiting different police stations in search of his son. The Ajeromi Ifelodun Community Movement also sent out dispatches to different police units and NGOs asking for help to find Mr. Okwaji.



In one of such letters, addressed to Amnesty International, the association revealed they had sent search parties to Abuja “to no avail”.



While insisting on his demand for the N400, 000 bribe, Sergeant Samuel evaded the family of Mr. Okwaji, preferring to connect on phone and not in person. “Anytime we wanted to meet him, he would say, ‘Come, but you will not meet me’,” Mr. Macaulay recalled. “Anytime we got to a station we’d been directed to, they would claim they did not know him; or that there was no Sergeant Samuel in that station.”



In a plan to track down the dubious sergeant, Emmanuella, Mr. Okwaji’s sister, connected with Sergeant Samuel via WhatsApp. Tall and fair, her looks seemed to have caught the attention of the sergeant, who invited her for an evening hangout at a local bar. In their WhatsApp chats, Sergeant Samuel gave his name to Emmanuella as Stephen Bayo.



Even as this scheduled meeting provided a rare opportunity to meet Sergeant Samuel in person, Mr. Macauley discouraged the idea. He said he did not want his daughter, whom he describes as “beautiful”, to come into contact with a man who had been involved in the abduction of his son.



Besides, Mr. Macauley thought Sergeant Samuel’s Whatsapp profile photo, as well as the name Stephen Bayo &#8211; which he suspected could be Sergeant Samuel’s real name – were enough leads to go on in terms of getting to the bottom of the issue. “I thought it would help our case,” Mr. Macaulay said.



But it didn’t. The sergeant continued to evade the family, keeping his identity secretive while still demanding the N400, 000 ransom.



A quick search on Truecaller, a caller identification app, showed the name attached to the number as “IPO Tayo Sars”.



Indicted for robbery&nbsp;



Abba Kyari, the celebrity cop who now leads the Inspector General of Police&#8217;s Intelligence Response Team (IGP-IRT), was the Officer-in-Charge of SARS when 34-year old Okwaji was arrested.&nbsp;



Mr. Macaulay, in the company of one Mr. Fatoki, a lawyer from the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), made a complaint to Mr. Kyari about the unlawful arrest of his son.&nbsp;



Mr. Kyari admitted that Mr. Okwaji was in his custody, but claimed he had been arrested for highway robbery, as against the known fact of being beaten and abducted on Nosamu Street in Lagos.



Convinced that there had been a mix-up which could be resolved with some legal backing, Mr. Macaulay and Mr. Fatoki left hoping to return on a later date to secure the release of Mr. Okwaji.&nbsp;



But things didn’t quite work out that way. Mr. Macaulay, whose pension earnings as a retired civil servant were irregular, could not meet the financial demands of his lawyer, Mr. Fatoki. He had assumed that given the sensitive nature of the case, Mr. Fatoki would consider helping him pro bono.&nbsp;



“We did not go back to Kyari because the NBA lawyer started asking for money,” Mr. Macaulay recounted. “After I had given him N20, 000, he took me to his chambers and asked that I pay more, but I did not have any money.”



.&nbsp;



On Thursday, November 6, 2014, The Nation newspaper published an article about two alleged armed robbers arrested by Abba Kayari’s SARS operatives. The men, identified as Olarenwaju Oladejo and Ibrahim Afolabi, both in their early 20s, confessed to armed robbery and indicted an “Eric Okowaji” and two others, who were reported “at large” at the time.&nbsp;



“My father died while he was working with the Ajeromi Local Government Area. I learnt panel beating but did not get enough money from it. Two of my friends, Eric (Okowaji) and Seyi, who are still at large, introduced me to the gang,” one of the suspects, Mr. Oladejo, was quoted to have said in another publication by The Punch newspaper.&nbsp;



The photo of Eric Okowaji in question was not attached to the publications by either The Nation or The Punch newspaper.



Could he have been the same Eric Okwaji who had been whisked away in that gold-painted Sienna car a few weeks earlier?



Mr. Macaulay insists that the Eric Okowaji referred to by armed robbers could never be his son, Eric Okwaji, who he said was a decent man.



“Eric was a footballer, and also worked at Bayelsa Motor Park Boundary before he was taken away,”&nbsp; Mr. Macauley said.&nbsp;



It has been exactly six years and one month since Mr. Okwaji was inexplicably brutalized and plucked away on the streets of Lagos.&nbsp;



Last month, as years of SARS-related brutality reached its peak, provoking protests nationwide and garnering global attention for Nigeria, the anguish of aggrieved families hit close to home for Mr. Macauley and his household, who continue to live in perpetual anxiety, not knowing where their beloved Eric Okwaji is, or even whether he is still alive or not.



Under the pressure of the #ENDSARS protests, the Nigerian Federal Government of President Muhammadu Buhari disbanded the controversial SARS unit, but the scars of their atrocities remain, with many questions unanswered, many mysteries unsolved.&nbsp;



Abba Kyari, the senior police officer who was responsible for SARS operations when Mr. Okwaji’s disappearance took place six years ago, is still being pursued for answers.



Multiple calls to Mr. Kyari’s phone number only gets his voice mail. He also has not responded to text messages sent to the same number.&nbsp;



Meanwhile, Mr. Macaulay has approached the Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of SARS Related Abuse and Other Matters to seek answers.&nbsp;



This is a developing story. Expect more revelations as we try to find Eric Okwaji.

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