Police murder: Rights group threaten court action

Emmanuel Victor

YENAGOA - Agape Birthrights, a group in Bayelsa State, has joined other civil society groups in the call on police authorities in the state to make public the identity of, and prosecute, the policemen who killed Citizen Emmanuel Victor, failing which it will head to court to compel it (Police) to do so.

The group, reiterated its determination to obtain justice for the family of the slain youth, adding that Nigeria must stop murdering citizens.

Twenty years old Emmanuel Victor, who was going for a degree program in Law at the Niger Delta University, NDU, Amassoma, was shot dead by police officers close to a checkpoint along Sanni Abacha Expressway, Yenagoa while returning from Church last month.

His offense was allegedly condemning the bribery and extortion of money by those police officers at the checkpoint from the commercial motorcyclist (Okada) he had boarded.

The deceased was said to be returning from church service in company with his mother when the incident happened.

Witnesses said his mother pleaded in vain to stop his son from being shot.

The policeman, who allegedly threatened to shoot his mother for attempting to help her son, was said to have removed a copy of the Holy Bible the deceased was holding at the time of his death and replaced it with a pair of scissors.

Though the killer policemen were apprehended and faced orderly room trial by the new Commissioner of Police, Mr. Hilary Opara, human rights community and family of the deceased are not comfortable with the way police was handling the matter.

They feared that the police authorities might not prosecute the indicted officers, thereby denying them justice.

President of Agape Birthrights, Annkio Briggs, who addressed newsmen, yesterday, in Yenagoa, said for the sake of justice, the identity of the of the officers involved in the killing should be made public and charged to court.

Lamenting the way the young man was killed by security operatives, who were kitted and funded with tax payers’ money, she said: “Human life cannot be so cheap that people, who cannot create a chicken, take it with such disregard. Not even a chicken is murdered that way. Emmanuel Victor was chased and murdered with impunity.”

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