http://www.newsportng.com.ng A middle aged woman Mrs Sandra Samira Okafor has lamented how she was arrested with her little daughter, Sophia Ifeanyi Okafor by the police with no warrant of arrest for no just course on their way back from a church night vigil.
Speaking to our correspondent on her ordeal, Mrs Okafor said when she was arrested and taken to the Commands police station in Fegge, Onitsha she was asked of her husband’s whereabouts Mr. Alexander Ikechukwu Okafor, whom she said left the country for safety following inceasant police harrasment some years ago.
She said, she told the police men that her husband left Nigeria approximately in 2017 and has not returned but the police expressed doubts and forced her to unluck her phone.
Mrs Okafor believes that her saving grace was that she was telling the truth and their corresponse proved it.
In her traumatized narration, she said, she was arrested along with her small daughter but was not put in cell because of the duaghter before she got released.
“During my arrest, I was very scared and fearful, mostly for my daughter. I could not think straight nor could I erase the thought that this could be my last day here on earth.”
She mentioned that her fear was exerbated by the extrajudicial killing of a Lagos lawyer, Mrs Omobolanle Raheem by the Lagos State police, stressing that while her husband was still in Nigeria, she had an encounter with the police in Lagos, but the feeling was very different now, because of her complete lack of trust in the institution.
She however expressed happiness that her husband was no longer around but she feared there is no accountability left in the institution and the consequence is lack of trust from the public.
” This is how my husband was harrassed severally before he left the country and I have continued to live in trauma since then before this encounter. I feel like a fish drawn out of water with no place to hide from them in Nigeria. I thank God we were released, but I no longer feel safe here in Onitsha. I don’t know where else I could go.
” As I speak to you now, I still live in fear because the way I saw the police behaving that day, it took the garce of God for us to be freed oooo, because the Killing of the Lagos lawyer was still the talk of town then, infact, the way most police men harrass people, while at times under the influence of alcohol calls for serious worries. The Nigerian authorities should do something about this.
“I wish to call on relevant government agencies to ensure there is reformation in the police force and to stop their harrasment of innocent citizens that mostly lead to extrajudicial killings. No Nigerian should be arrested unjustly after a church service. No Nigerian should be subjected to traumer and fear like I was treated.
She queried, “Why are we incapable of checking the menance of police killings and harrasment of Nigerians. Why is there no data base on police killings in Nigeria. Lots of Nigetians die in the hands of police every year and yet no national data base to monitor this killings. It is time for the National Police to reform our laws and bring back trust to the institution by establishing a system of accountability” she said.
