Wife of a kidnapped victim, Emmanuel Nkim, allegedly killed by the security outfit, Operation Skolombo in Calabar last week, has petitioned the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIGP) seeking for arrest and prosecution of those complicit in the murder of her husband, OrientDaily reports.
Mrs. Esther Nkim’s petition signed by her lawyer, Ntufam Mba Ukweni, and dated July 18, 2017, was also copied the National Human Right Commission (NHRC), Cross River House of Assembly and Amnesty International amongst others.
In the petition titled “Re: Gruesome Murder of My Husband, Mr Emmanuel Etta Nkim, by Men of Operation Skolombo, in Calabar,’ Mrs. Nkim narrated the incidents that culminated in the abduction and murder of her husband.
According to her, the slain Mr. Nkim, was about to drive back home after attending church service at the Winners Chapel headquarters on Wednesday, July 12, 2017, when he was accosted by a four-man gang who abducted him.
She explained that one of the cyclists who witnessed what transpired rushed to where the Operation Skolombo patrol vehicles were and accordingly informed the operatives that a man was just abducted. Men of the security outfit, according to her, chased the abductors who later abandoned their vehicles and fled into the bush.
However, instead of the operatives rescuing the victim, they elected to shot the victim dead, and tagged him ‘an armed robber’.
The petition read in part: “on Wednesday, July 12, 2017 at about 8pm, my husband was shot death…having killed him, operatives of the joint task force took his corpse to the State Criminal Investigation Department (SCID), Calabar, where they handed it over to their colleagues in Special Anti- Robbery Squad, SARS.
“The SARS, in turn took the corpse to the University of Calabnar Teaching Hospital mortuary where it was deposited and embalmed on their instructions.”
The widow expressed dissatisfaction with the manner in which the case was handled by the State command, urging the AIGP to conduct detailed investigation into the matter.
Mrs Esther, herself a Deputy Route Commander of the Federal Road Safety Commission, insists that the Operation Skolombo operatives did not follow rule of engagement by deliberately ignoring “Basic Principles on Use of Force and Firearms (BPUFF) and Force Order on Firearms under Proportionality, Legality, Accountability and Necessity (PLAN).”
However, State’s Police Public Relation Officer, Irene Ugbo, denied allegation that police officers deliberately murdered Mr. Nkim. The Assistant Superintendent Police (ASP) officer argued that the victim died in a cross-fire.
“It was not the Police or SARS who killed him, may be the suspects might have killed him before the police got there because as we were told, he was beaten seriously before they drove him away.”
Asked why the police decided to shot sporadically at the vehicle knowing an abducted person was inside, and even tagging the victim of abduction, ‘an armed robber,’ Ugbo said
“when the police saw the body of that man in the car, they assumed that he was an armed robber because information that was given to them was that armed robbers snatched the person’s car and left not knowing that the man that was inside the car was the victim. Their own happiness was that they have killed an armed robber not knowing that it was the victim.”
On why the Police could not contact members of Emmanuel Nkim’s family or even call back after seeing many missed calls of both the wife and other family members and despite the fact that his phones were with them, Ugbo said the Police initially believed strongly that the man was an armed robber.
She argued: “You know how we treat armed robbers when they are dead. We just take them to the mortuary and after several investigations, we take them to bury, we don’t care to know about family because he is regarded as a criminal.”
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