Grief. That is the affliction that has taken over the life of Grace Victor, mother of a prospective law student, Emmanuel, who was brutally murdered by policemen in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa State capital, last Sunday. Osa Okhomina reports
Grace has witnessed some horrifying moments in her life, but what she saw last Sunday was unimagined and debilitating. Right before her eyes, some unconscionable policemen, pursued her only son, shot him to death and disappeared into thin air. The brutal shots ended the ambition of late Emmanuel to pursue a degree in law and change the status of his family in Opobo-Nkoro in Rivers State. If he had known he would have avoided relocating last May to Yenagoa, where he worked as a marketer in a family business that kept them going.
He met his untimely death in a most brutal way. The late Emmanuel, who was said to be a member of one of the Pentecostal churches, was not expected to die the way he did and the day he did. If death was to take him, it should not have been shortly after the outpouring of the holy ghost on him and his mother.
But fate and time might have played a negative part in fast-forwarding his demise in the hands of the trigger-happy policemen stationed a few metres away from the church.
Although the police are yet to give any concrete reason for the murder of Emmanuel, it was gathered that the young man might have incurred the wrath of the cops as a result of his alleged comments over the extortion of commercial cyclists by the police at a checkpoint close the church that Emmanuel had his last contact with his creator.
Apparently irked? by the antics of the police in fleecing the cyclists, popularly known as Okada, the deceased is said to have made some comments which the police considered offensive and unbecoming of a ‘common civilian’ and they decided to ‘deal with him’ no matter who he was.
?Before the enraged policemen could be persuaded to calm down, one of them had loaded his AK-47 rifle, fired many shots in the direction of Emmanuel and warned him not to make any attempt to move.
Like a horror movie, the policemen opened fire severally on the young man who was trying to run to safety but was felled by the volley of bullets that were rained at him by his attackers.
?The bereaved mother recalled what she saw: “After the church service, I came out and boarded a commercial motor cycle to go home. Not far from where I took off, gunshots rented the air and I saw many worshippers and passers-by running in different directions.
“Scared, I pleaded with the cyclist to stop for us to take cover. But before I could alight from the bike, I saw policemen pursuing my son who was already gasping for breath. Both sides of the road were flooded with police vans and I made efforts to know from the police why they were pursuing him but they brushed me aside and continued with their mission.
“I then pleaded with one of the officers that the boy they were pursuing was my son and that he was a staunch Christian who had never hurt a fly. “This is my son and he is a believer,” I pleaded with the officer.
“But before the senior police officer could pacify the rampaging policemen, they had coked their rifles and fired repeatedly at my son.”
?I saw him shoot my son brutally with my two eyes; no mercy at all. As he fell to the ground, the tallest policeman continued to fire at him until he was satisfied that the young man had actually passed on. He was still holding the Bible when he was shot. I rushed as a mother, to go and attend to him but they threatened that if I don’t move back they would also shoot me,” the woman said.
Convinced that the young man had paid the price for his effrontery, the policemen zoomed off and left the body on the roadside. But worried? that the action could trigger a mob action against them, a team of policemen quickly moved in and took the corpse away to an unknown location.
The police action is not new and may not be the last, given the fact that they have always manufactured reasons to justify such killings in the past and get away with the murders.
It has already drawn the ire of the human rights community in the state and many more are expected to join the fray in the coming days.
Commenting on the incident, the State Office of the Civil Liberty Organisation, described the killing of the man as a premeditated act for which the culprits should be accordingly punished.
The State Secretary of CLO, Comrade Morris Alagoa, asked the police to explain why they committed murder without justification.?
“Now, no matter what happened, even though police statement would say that the deceased was smoking hemp and even tried to fight them when they challenged him, would they say that the young man overpowered them?” Alagoa asked.
“Was it proper to shoot at an unarmed Nigerian? Have the police the right to pass judgment and also sentence to death? These are few of the questions that the CLO and concerned Nigerians would like the police authorities to give answers to,” the body said.
The immediate past Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in the State, Barr. Stanley Amabide, described the killing of Emmanuel by the police as unbecoming of the policemen and called on the Inspector general of Police to fish them out for prosecution in the interest of justice.
Amabide said the act was a crime against humanity and a breach of the? constitutional provision of the right to life and liberty.
“What happened was another display of police recklessness and is highly condemnable. However, I think it is an isolated case that should be addressed in that manner. The particular officer should be dealt with according to Law,” Amabide said.
Series of unaccounted killing by the police and other security agencies have triggered a clamour by the majority of natives of the state to call for the overhaul of the police leadership in the state.