In Anambra State, a widow of a victim of SARS, Chidinmma Edozieuno on Thursday told the state judicial panel on police brutality that policemen attached to the unit killed her husband in 2017 and asked to remarry.
“They told me to give him the last goodbye by kissing him,” she stated.
Edozieuno, who petitioned the panel, asked it to give her reasonable compensation for the loss of her husband and property.
She said her husband, Johnson, was a businessman who was based in Benin Republic but came to Nigeria to visit her and her baby when he was taken away by SARS officials.
She said,” We were in our house in Awka that fateful day in August 2017 when some gunmen broke into our house and took my husband. They also took away our property and told me to go and marry another man that ‘this one is as good as dead.’
“They said my husband was a kidnapper. I did not even know where they came from, and at first, I didn’t even know they were policemen.
“With the help of a friend, who is a police officer, we started looking for my husband. He took me to many police stations to know if they detained him, but he was with none of them. We went to Awkuzu SARS office, and that was where I saw three of the men who came and arrested my husband.
“I hired a lawyer and we went to court. It was in court that the counsel representing SARS told us that my husband was dead. They said he was a kidnapper. I dated my husband for a long time before we got married. He was not a kidnapper. I lived in Benin and that was where we knew each other. I later relocated to Nigeria. My husband was from Aguleri.”
Chairman of the panel, Rtd Justice V.N Umeh, however, assured Edozieuno that the petition was well-received and that it would go into investigation and make recommendations, after which, they would invite her.
