By Onozure Dania

A couple, tortured to the point of losing two pregnancies, narrated their ordeal in the hands of SARS operatives to the Lagos State Judicial Panel on Restitution for Victims of Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) Related Abuses and other Matters, on Saturday.

The couple, Mr Okuchukwu Obiechina and Mrs Ndubisi Obiechina, told the nine-member panel that they were awarded N2 million, against SARS, by the Federal High court sitting in Lagos, but that it was dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Narrating their ordeal in the hands of SARS officers, Mrs Nububisi Obiechina, a teacher, said they were arrested on June 2, 2017, and were detained for 22 days in SARS custody.

She said their nightmare began when she received a message that she had a parcel from DHL. She later got a call and the person asked her to send him her house or school address after she had told him that she’s was a teacher.

The petitioner said that when she got home, she told her husband, a businessman, about the call. Her husband collected the number from her and dialed it. But it was switched off.

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She also said that her husband asked her to give the caller her school address. So on the next day, the person called again, but with a different number. She then informed the school’s proprietress that some people were coming.

Obiechina said after some time, she saw a black SUV and one of the occupants wore a DHL apron.

While the caller was on phone with her, the one on the DHL apron was approaching her. When she got close to the car, she saw huge men. They immediately grabbed and started beating her, calling her a thief.

The complainant, who had no legal representative, narrated that she was two months pregnant then

They took her to their Ikeja office and continued with the beating, telling her they would remove the baby and that she would die there.

They also told her to produce the father of the baby; that her husband was not the father.

In her words: “At 3p.m., they brought me out. I said they should allow me to call my husband so that he would know where I was.

“I also told them that I have a five-year-old child in a school and that I need to call someone to take the child home. They refused.

“Later I was allowed to talk to my husband, but the phone was on the loudspeaker mode. It was one of the SARS men, Christian, that put the phone on speaker mode.

“My husband said he had looked for everywhere for me. That the proprietress told him that some policemen arrested me. It was Christian, the SARS man, that told him where I was.”

Obechina further named the three SARS people that tortured them as Philip Rilwan, Christian and Harouna Idowu.

“When my husband came to area F, Keeps Field,” she continued, “they started beating him. They put a tyre on his neck and said that they would kill him like others, that he is a thief.

“They hit my husband’s head with the butt of a gun and a stone. I was urinating on my body when all the torture was going on.

“Around 7p.m., they took us to Federal SARS at Ikeja and then gave my husband his phone. He called our pastor and I was also allowed to call a co-teacher friend to help me take care of the child. The SARS men said the child should die there.

“We spent three weeks in the cell under an open roof and rain was beating us. We slept on the floor and, even as a pregnant woman, I didn’t eat anything.

“At night, they would come and take me upstairs for interrogation. Because of the stress and torture, I lost the two-month-old pregnancy.

“I got pregnant again the second time after we were released.

“One Sunday, while we were preparing to go to Church, they came again to arrest my husband and Philip Rilwan said that the order was from Abba Kyari.

“I pleaded with them to allow my husband to dress up because he was on boxers. They refused and took him away.

“When I couldn’t get through to my husband after one week, I contacted our lawyer and he said it is getting out of hand. So he got an order from the Federal High Court that he should be released immediately. Then we wrote to SARS.

“Because of the stress and trauma that I went through, I lost the second pregnancy again.

“We were awarded the sum of N2 million by the Federal High Court because of the brutality and trauma that SARS caused us.

“But up till now, we have not been given the compensation. We also appealed the judgement, but the appeal court dismissed it. Nothing has happened since then.”

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“SARS also took the N50,000 that my husband brought to the place and we eventually bailed ourselves with N400,000.”

Mr Okuchukeu Obiechina confirmed the testimony of his wife.

The panel is made up of the Chairman Justice Doris Okuwobi (Rtd), Mr Ebun Adegboruwa (SAN), Mr Taiwo Lakanu, a retired Deputy Inspector-General of Police and a founding member of SARS.

Other panelists are Mrs Oluwatoyin Odusanya, Director, Lagos State Directorate of Citizen’s Rights; Ms Patience Udoh, a representative of the civil society groups, and Mr Segun Awosanya (Segalink), a human rights activist.

After listening to the complainant’s narration, Chapman of the Panel, Justice Doris Okuwobi, said the proceedings has to be adjourned because some members of SARS had been mentioned, so there is need to send an invitation to the Commissioner of Police so that the men can come and say their own side of the matter.

She adjourned further hearing of the petition to Tuesday, November 10.

On Monday, October 26, the panel had announced that it had 15 petitions, before it. But as at Saturday, October 31, 33 petitions had been received and four cases were called, but only two were heard.

Vanguard