Murder case police want to cover ....I need justice, says man who lost his son to land grabbers

Emeka Ibemere

Ask Pa- Ngozi Ejiofor what has being his pains in the last two months, since the lost of his son in gruesome murdered in his farmland to gang of suspected land grabbers ravaging the Ogwashi Uku Kingdom, Delta State; he would tell you that the Ogwashi-Uku Divisional Police Office and their readiness to cover up the killers of his son; was more painful than the lost of his son-Peter Emeka Ejiofor, 30 on August 25, 2014.

Trouble started for the family of Ngozi Ejiofor, of Agidiesei quarters; of Ogwashi Uku when gunmen numbering over 20 stormed his farmland in a desperate bid to sell the farmland but because of the opposition of the two brothers, who were allegedly at the farm when the goons invaded the property on different days, strangulated one, and to the other, dispatched

Father of the slain Ejiofor

Emeka

Mordi

to death.

It was gathered that the late Peter Emeka Ejiofor and his cousin, Mordi Enweazu, were killed by the rampaging land grabbers in a brutal manner. The killing which took place on August, 25 has put fear into the communities and forcing them to re-treat from going to their land farms for fear of death. But that is a minor thing, when compared to what the Ogwashi Uku; police are trying to turn the case to. ‘The case of an accused becoming the suspect’

Meanwhile, in a petition sent to the Commissioner of Police, Asaba Headquarters and copied to the Acting Inspector General of Police, on August 8, 2014 and was written and signed by 70-something year old Ngozi Ejiofor, an elder of Ogwashi Uku, over the police conspiracy in covering and shielding the alleged murderers of his son, Chief Ejiofor alleged hostile attitude of Ogwashi-Uku police division in the murder saga.

The petition entitled: “The Murder of my son Peter Emeka Ejiofor and the hostility of the Ogwashi-Uku Police”, made available to Daily Newswatch, said that action of the police, portends danger to his personal life, family and his prayer for the high police command carry out an honest investigation into the murder of his son and assurance of his safety and that of his family.

“I wish to bring to your notice; the murder of my son Peter Emeka Ejiofor, 30 on the 25 August, 2014 in the farm; the hostile attitude of Ogwashi Uku police, the grave danger these portends to me and my family, and to pray that you use your good office to cause an honest investigation of this murder of my son and give me an assurance of the safety of I and my family” Ejiofor said.

Revealing what he termed the police’s unprofessional duty in the murder case, Ejiofor that when his son was missing, that the village search party after sighting the corpse of his son in the farm, that he reported the case to the police. He said the police appointed a team to go and recover his son’s corpse. However, the team moved into action but made a demand of N50, 000, from his younger brother who went to the farm with the police to enable them do their work.

“I promptly reported the matter to the Divisional Crime Officer, DCO 11, who latter intervened but as soon as the team brought my son’s corpse to the mortuary, they disappeared without a word leaving me at loss of what to do with the corpse”, he added.

“It was certainly a hostile team that brought the corpse of my son to the mortuary. The malevolent glances cast at me on their arrival were obvious. My report to the DCO 11 would have injured the sensibility of the Ogwashi-Uku police. I would have crossed the unwritten and unspoken red line. But could not my anguish and emotional state at that portion. The police have abandoned me and given the great fear the murder of my child has induced in me and my brother being the only people left hurriedly to arrange my son’s corpse in coffin and flee”.

Pa-Ejiofor wouldn’t have abandoned his son’s corpse, and so he buried him. But after the burial, he went to the police station to make statement. The DCO introduced to him, the Investigation Police Officer, IPO, alleged to be a dark-complexioned stocky man, who was not happy with him in his office. The man was alleged to be constantly and with ever increasing vehemence and venom, heckled and scolded the old man, and labelled him and his late son as cultists. The angry IPO allegedly accused Ejiofor of burying his dead son without police permit and reports. He said the new twist from the IPO, kept him off balance when the police asked him to write in his statement that he buried the corpse of his son without police permit and autopsy.

“At a point, I considered stop writing the report and fleeing from the police station. However, I continued to write in spite of his vituperation. All through my writing, he was yelling at me- ‘that you buried the corpse of your son without permit and police report. This development must have been major news in which ever camp, the policeman is fronting for”, he wrote in his Petition to the Commissioner of Police, Delta State.

The petitioner alleged that after making his statement, the alleged IPO, constituted the files and arranged a photographer, who told the petitioner the amount of money to be paid to him. He said, the IPO took him to the Divisional Police Officer, DPO and on their way to the DPO’s office, another police officer who is more superior rank officer than the IPO, accosted them and ordered the IPO, to tear off the eight-page document on the attached statement that he was to present to the DPO. “There and then, in my presence, the IPO dismantled the file and removed the document before presenting the file to the DPO”, he added. “The same man followed the IPO and I to the DPO’s office even in the DPO’s office and even as the DPO was addressing me, he was hollering though in a reduced tempo. He was constantly saying that ‘even you have no suspect’. For a moment, I wondered in my mind whether he was a superior officer to the DPO, before the DPO hushed him up”.

According to the petitioner, the attached document which the officer ordered the IPO to detract from his petition was a letter the petitioner said he wrote to His Majesty, the Obi of Ogwashi-Uku, entitled: the apparent militarisation of Ogwashi-Uku and the destruction of our farmland by one Chief Collins Afuwah; a Plea to call him to order, which was dated on 30 July 2014 but delivered on August 13, 2014.

The petitioner, Ejiofor said in his petition to the Delta State Commissioner of Police, that he sensed that the document which the police in Ogwashi-Uku destroyed was incriminating and could rattle the policemen to warrant them to destroy the document.

“The summation of the attached document is that it prophesied the tragedy that happened on the 25 of August, 2014-the alleged cold blooded murder of my son, Peter Emeka Ejiofor. As early as 30th of July, 2014, more than a month before this murder of my son, Chief Afuwah and members of his de-facto militia was fingered as the chief suspects. Not only that this document established them as the suspects, it went further to ascribe motive to their crime”, the petition said.

According to him, the above report was very dangerous and that was while the police destroyed the document from his statement on the murder of his son.

“Section 214 of the 1999 constitution makes the Nigeria Police, the only organ of public order and safety therefore every right thinking adult Nigerian, should be worried about and sensitive to the conduct and integrity of the police force and its officers and men. And be disturbed when an illegal entity is doing the work of the police”, Ejiofor said, the police cannot be a friend of the citizen and cannot fulfil its constitutional duty of securing public order and safety, if the citizens live in fear of the police. I do not mean the legitimate fear of the law; I mean the fear that arises from the gut feeling that the police are compromised”.

The emotionally dislocated old man who while speaking on phone wept bitterly referred in his petition thus:

 “A compromised police is more dangerous than Ebola virus. This is because, every police man is a carrier of the sacrosanct pact to protect and treat the hoi-polloi fairly. Even a hostile glance from a police detracts from this solemn undertaken”.

He claimed that by ordering the removal of the document, the police officer deprived a chain of superior officers and even posterity the complete and variant shades of views, evidence and opinion on the matter.

“Before Me, the hurting father of the murdered man, he created at once a lasting impression of a police to be feared, and the police as an entity where anything and everything goes on to the disadvantage of the underdog. The police that is not disturbed; that an illegal entity is doing the work of the police. Threatening lives and property and universally, the work of the police is to protect the life of the citizen”.

The petitioner said that the life of a citizen, who the constitution grants a legal life to live in the name of Federal Republic of Nigeria, has been killed. He said the veritable advance notice of his impending murder was contained in the document the police destroyed and an officer of the law charged with the duty of ensuring that the man was kept alive mutilated the evidence.

According to him, the police officer that ordered the removal of the document he tendered in his statement without requesting for his permission and without the order of a lawful court could do the police and the nation a lot of damage in secrecy.

“It is only in a failing political entity that such are found in the police. We do not need further search for reasons why we are faced by security challenges. In view of the above scenario, how can I whisper any rumour to the police and expect to be safe. How can the police make landmark breakthrough in investigation. This is one reason among others why there are so many unresolved murders”.

Ejiofor concluded his petition which bores his bitter experience with the police, stating that as he was leaving the police station, he saw the policeman and told him that he was going but that in mannerless voice, the policeman asked him to “get –away”.

“The policeman and police station scared me stiff. How can I now respond to call to come to the police station without trepidation? I left the station constantly looking back and wondering whether the IPO wouldn’t inform those who killed my son to wait for me on the road to assassinate me as well”, he added, it is stating the obvious that I do not feel safe with the Ogwashi Uku police. I have long vacated my house and the town. Let me conclude the narration by quoting from page 2; of the removed document,” “I wish to highlight the obvious dangerous security issue entailed in an individual even if he is a high chief being able to deploy at will a platoon of armed without recourse to the police”, the petitioner stated. “My gut feeling is that in some way, the officers and men of Ogwashi Uku police, at least some of them are privy to the killing of my son”.

According Chief Ejiofor, the petitioner said he wants justice, even though it’s certain that his son won’t come back alive again, but that he wants justice and to make sure that such wanton killi8ngs so not repeat itself in the Kingdom again.

In the petition which also was sent to the Inspect General of the Police, IG, the petitioner listed those he was suspecting to be behind his son’s death.

“Let me inform of the rumour I picked up because I believe that I and the police are in the business of tracking down the killers of my son. This will not bring him back to life, but would serve the course of justice and help for forestalling future killing”, he wrote.

“Strange men passed the night on the 24th August, 2014 in a four story-flat-storey building owned by Chief Collins Afuwah, that is situated on Jokwa Street Agidiesei and that on the 25th of August, these strange men were seen with-Njor Arueze, Kido Okadiegbo, Victor Iyase, Azuka Iyase, and Bolum Osakwe. Others are Sunday Mowette and Obaseki”. He concluded I suspect that these strange men were the hit squad that killed my son on the evening of 25th August, 2014 in my farmland which they have been striving to deprive me and sell off”.