Trader Ndukwe Ekwekwe Narrates How SARS Threw Him From Two-storey Building Which Made Him Paralysed

Trader Ndukwe Ekwekwe Narrates How SARS Threw Him From Two-storey Building Which Made Him Paralysed

A trader, Ndukwe Ekwekwe has narrated to the Judicial Panel of Inquiry into SARS-related abuses how SARS officers arrested him in his shop, tortured him, and threw him off a two-storey building in Lagos on February 16, 2018, in Lagos.

Speaking in Pidgin English, the trader said trouble came when four arms-wielding SARS men led by Haruna Hamisu showed up around 2 pm on February 16, 2018, in his shop at Alaba and began to handcuff him without any explanation.

Ekwekwe said when he asked for his offence, the officers simply told him they were acting on the order of the Inspector-General of Police, Mohammed Adamu.

He said when his neighbours in the market came around to inquire what was happening, the policemen began to shoot in the air and fired tear gas to disperse them.

“I asked them what my crime was, but none of them told me. Other traders in the shopping complex equally asked the same question of the police officers. At a point, the police officers began to shoot to scare people away,” he said.

Ekwekwe said the police officers eventually took him away to ‘Area F’ police station, where the SARS office was.

At the station, the petitioner said he was beaten, stabbed in his hand and on his back, tortured, and dumped in a cell where the inmates subjected him to another round of beating.

The police officers reportedly took Ekwekwe to his shop the next day, February 17.

He also alleged that the officers broke into his shop and auctioned off his goods.

Ekwekwe said he protested to the officers, following which one of them pushed him off a two-storey building.

The petitioner said his spinal cord got broken and he was taken to the Lagos University Teaching Hospital.

He said he became crippled and damaged his bladder.

The petitioner told the panel that he now wears a diaper.

Ekwekwe said he sold his house and land and his family lost everything trying to offset the hospital bills.

Ekwekwe’s mother, Mrs. Ibekwe, led him into the hearing room on a wheelchair.

The Panel Chairperson Justice Doris Okwuobi (retd) admitted hospital documents, X-rays, telephone numbers of the indicted officers and other documents tendered by the petitioners as exhibits.

The panel adjourned till November 13 to hear Ekwekwe’s mother’s side of the story.