A rights activist and the National Vice President of Committee For Defence of Human Rights (CDHR), Comrade Kehinde Taiga, has petitioned the Inspector General of Police (IGP) Mohammed Adamu, over the predicament of 50-year-old victim, Mr. Solomon Bassey, whose spinal cord was recently dislocated by the police in Delta state.
In the the petition made available to newsmen in Warri, Taiga urged the police boss to immediately initiate a probe into the activities of men and officers of B Division police station in Warri, who allegedly inflicted the victim with the severe body damage over bail settlement.
He called on the IG to urgently compel the Delta state police commissioner, Mr. Hafiz Inuwa, to take up the responsibility of paying the medical bills of the victim who had been moving from one hospital to the other for treatment since last year but had still not recovered.
The CDHR vice president expressed regrets over the way and manner in which the victim was recklessly abandoned by the police since the incident occured, stating that the family members were currently being subjected to hardship, as the victim can no longer play his bread-winner role anymore.
According to him, “I want to personally appeal to the Inspector General of Police to carry out the investigations into the assault by the men of the B Division Police station in Warri that led to Mr. Solomon Bassey’ spinal cord damage, on August 21, 2019.
“This probe had become very imperative in order for justice to be done to the victim and his immediate family, especially the wife who has been subjected to physical, mental and phychological trauma since the incident occurred.
“The Inspector General should also direct the police to take full responsibility of the victim’s hospital expenses, in addition to providing for the needs of his immediate family since it was their action that kept him in his present state.”
It would be recalled that the victim had joined his wife at the police station to secure the release of his brother inlaw, one Ogaga Ohwe, who was arrested alongside his commercial tricycle popularly known as Keke, over changes effected on his engine number.
He explained to them that he bought the commercial tricycle second hand and the person who sold it to him was invited for clarification, afterwhich he bailed himself with the sum of N15,000.
It was when the police were also demanding that Ohwe, equally pay the same amount as bail that the victim, Solomon Bassey, argued that he ought not to pay any bail since the person that sold the Keke to him had already clarified issues.
This argument was said to have infuriated the police who pushed him out of the stationed before inflicting severe damage on his spinal cord at the entrance gate of the police station.
The Warri Area Commander, ACP Mukhtar Garba, who confirmed the beating of the victim by the police, said he had earlier instructed the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of B Division, CSP Andrew Inedegbor, to take charge of the medical billls but it appeared this advice was ignored.
But CSP Inedegbor who spoke to our reporter on phone, said he had given the victim close to N900 to settle his hospital bill.
He said, “Even though I was not aware of what happened because of the human feelings that I have for the victim, I gave him some money to enable him settle the bill. Even when he was in UBTH, I sent him money to offset the initial bill.”
