At the continuation of proceedings of the Lagos State Judicial Panel of Inquiry for Restitution for Victims of SARS-Related Abuses and other Matters on Tuesday, a trader, Mr. Ndukwe Ekekwe, narrated how he was allegedly tortured and paralysed by the disbanded police unit.
Ekekwe, who was on a wheelchair, told the nine-man panel that he was thrown from a two-storey building at the Alaba International Market by officers of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) which led to his sustaining a spinal cord injury.
The petitioner, who was accompanied by his aged mother, narrated to the panel in Pidgin English the events that led to his paralysis.
Ekekwe said at 2p.m on February 16, 2018, he was arrested at the Alaba International Market without charge by SARS officers.
He said that fellow traders asked the policemen to show their identity cards before Ekekwe could be handcuffed.
“They immediately removed their SARS shirts and began to shoot and everyone ran away.
“I asked them what was my crime and they said it was an order from the Inspector-General of Police (IGP).
“I was handcuffed in one hand because they noticed I wasn’t a troublemaker. On our way, they stopped at Igando and came down from the car and were talking.
“I used my other hand to reach my phone to try to call my mother and the Inspector saw me, approached me, and asked who gave me the guts to make a phone call and he took the phone, stepped on it, and destroyed it.
“He stabbed me on my wrist and back and I was hit on the head with the butt of a gun and beaten. They collected the N58,000 that was for my shop,” he said.
Ekekwe said he was taken to the SARS office at Ikeja, Lagos, and at midnight he was stripped naked, taken to a torture chamber where he was beaten and tortured.
He noted that other SARS officers who were torturing other individuals also joined their colleagues in torturing him and he was in the process threatened that he would be shot with a gun.