A woman in Anambra State, Mrs. Ebere Okonkwo, has raised the alarm that her husband, Dubem Okonkwo, has gone missing at the Awkuzu police custody, where he was being detained.
Mrs. Okonkwo alleged that her husband might have been murdered in the custody. She, therefore, called on the police authorities to intervene.
She said her husband, Dubem, was a member of the Tricycle Owners Association of Nigeria, Awka branch, Anambra. The police were said to have arrested him on March 15 without any explanation.
Recounting how she searched for her husband who was arrested and paraded alongside other suspects by the Commissioner of Police, Echeng Echeng, at the Command’s headquarters in Awka, she claimed that Dubem went missing after the parade.
According to her, the police picked up her husband at the UNIZIK Junction Park, adding that the CP refused to tell the family or the members of his Keke association the nature of his offence.
She said, “Why did the police kill my husband in cold blood? I am suspecting that someone paid the police to kill him. Let us assume that he committed any crime, was it right to kill him in the cell without being taken to court and condemned by the court?”
She said, “My husband might have been killed extra-judicially without trial and this must stop. He must not die in vain. We visited Anambra State Commissioner of Police, Mr. Echeng Echeng; Anambra State Police Public Relations Officer, Mr. Tochukwu Ikenga and Police formations across the state and no one was able to say the offence that my 48-year-old husband committed.
“Now the police will now look for a crime to hang on his neck. But even if he committed any crime, was it right to kill him without taking him to the court?”
She, therefore, demanded, “I need justice. And every Nigerian must stand with me in this fight for justice. I demand an explanation for my missing husband. Why is he missing? If they have not killed him, let them produce him.
“That is why I am crying to the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.), Inspector-General of Police, Women Affairs Minister, and well meaning Nigerians, to prevail on CP Echeng to bring the policemen and those who paid them to murder him to book.”
Ebere further called on Buhari and the IGP to prevail on the CP to allow her take her husband’s body and give him a befitting burial.
When contacted, the state police spokesman, Tochukwu Ikenga, only said, “The woman’s husband was among the suspects paraded by the CP. More information will be communicated please.”
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