The Senator representing Benue South Senatorial District, Comrade Abba Patrick Moro calls on the Nigeria Police Force to produce his constituent, Bernard Ogbu, reportedly in their custody for more than three years.
According to a report, the 43-year-old Ogbu has been in the custody of the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Abuja for over three years without trial or bail and the SARS’ operatives do not allow anyone to see him.
Ogbu, who hails from Igumale community in Ado Local Government Area of Benue State, was arrested on March 3, 2019 at his residence in New Nyanya area of Nasarawa State. Till date, the police authority has neither disclosed any criminal allegation against him nor released him to his family.
The Senator laments that Bernard Ogbu’s wife developed depression and other health complications as a result of the prolonged detention of her husband and died last year, leaving behind four young children.
An Abuja-based legal practitioner, Barrister Napoleon Otache, who raised the alarm on behalf of the family over Ogbu’s perpetual and cruel detention in a petition to the Presidency, Inspector General of Police, IGP, National Assembly, the National Human Rights Commission and other numerous agencies, said the SARS’ operatives also confiscated Ogbu’s personal belongings during the arrest and the operatives have also converted the belongings to their personal use.
Senator Moro strongly condemns the unprofessional conduct of the police for refusing to charge the suspect to court within 48 hours as stipulated in our law.
The Senator calls on the police authority to immediately produce Ogbu alive, with public apologies and adequate compensation to assuage him of the torture, inhumane and degrading treatment he is being subjected to in the hands of the SARS’ operatives since 2019 till date.
Senator Moro believes that under the Nigeria laws, no amount of suspicion is strong enough to earn a human being incarcerated indefinitely without trial in a competent court of law.
He therefore calls on the police authority to expedite action and resolve what is now an obvious misuse of state power on the part of the police institution and provide answers to the questions being asked by the family.
Senator Moro wishes to state that the whole world is watching to see whether the Nigeria Police Force has indeed yielded to the popular demand for an end to police brutality.