Hearing by the Lagos State Panel of Judicial Inquiry into complaints of human rights violations by men of the disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad continued on Saturday with a schoolteacher, Ndubuisi Obiechina, narrating to the panel how she was arrested in 2017 on a bogus allegation of being a thief and a kidnapper and tortured by SARS men till her then two-month-old pregnancy was aborted.
The schoolteacher, who appeared before the retired Justice Doris Okuwobi-led panel alongside her husband, told the panel that she was detained for 22 days and tortured till she lost her pregnancy.
She named the officers who tortured her as Phillip Rilwan, Christian, and Haruna Idowu.
She alleged that the policemen stole her husband’s N50,000 and compelled them to part with N400,000 as bail fee before they were freed.
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Narrating their ordeal in the hands of the SARS men, she said, “On June 1, 2017, I received a text message from an unknown number that I had a parcel from DHL. A caller using different numbers asked for my home or office address and I gave him my school address upon my husband’s advice.
“The following day, I saw a black jeep with huge men inside it. One of them was in a DHL uniform. Immediately, they approached me, they started beating me. They said I should enter inside. They said I was a thief, an armed robber. The one in the DHL uniform removed it. My HM (headmistress) was peeping at us. I said let me go and tell her. They said no.
“I said my kid is there, they said no, that I should follow them, that my kid would die there.
“My HM came to the gate; they pointed a gun at me. She asked what was going on. They said, ‘This woman is a thief, a kidnapper. She must follow us and go. They said they were Police, SARS’.
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“They pushed me inside the car and moved. The men were slapping, beating me. I was two months pregnant. I started vomiting. That’s when they found out I was pregnant. But they kept torturing me. I told them I did not know the suspect.
For one week, as a pregnant woman, I did not eat, I did not drink. I told them I wanted to go and register for antenatal. They said I should give birth to the child there,” she said.
“I told them the doctors said I don’t need any stress that my kind of body is the body that needs to stay one place. They said, no. Let the baby die. In the process, I lost the baby.
“It was later after the detention, I went to the hospital. They then found out that the baby was gone. We had to wash it off.”
Obiechina, who is also the first petitioner in today’s hearing, tendered court judgements as exhibits to the judicial panel.
She informed the panel that a few months after she and her husband were released, Mr Obiechina was rearrested by SARS operatives and taken into custody.
The victim revealed that she was pregnant but lost yet another unborn baby, as a result of the stress and trauma she went through in the process.
After listening to her submission, the Chairman of the Panel and retired Chief Judge of Lagos, Justice Doris Okuwobi admitted as exhibits, the judgements delivered in 2017 and 2020 respectively.
“Judgement in appeal CA/L/178 of 2018 COP and others against Mr Obiechina and another dated March 20, 2020, is hereby admitted and marked as Exhibit B,” she said.
When asked for any other matter to be used as an exhibit, the petitioner’s wife, Ndubuisi, narrated how police authorities extorted she and her husband.
“We also bailed ourselves. When they released us, we bailed ourselves with N250,000 and N150,000 respectively,” she added.
While noting that the SARS operatives also arrested her husband who came to check up on her, the victim said they were put in different cells.
She also revealed how SARS operatives unlawfully took N50,000 in their possession and alleged that they both paid N150,000 and N250,000 cash for their bail.
The victim explained that although the court awarded her N2 million as damages against the police authorities, she is yet to receive the sum.
Obiechina’s remarks come three days after another victim, Okoli Aguwu, accused SARS operatives of extracting his teeth while spending 47 days in custody.
