Schoolboy lands in prison for filming police officers assaulting young man

Chidiebube Ohadoma, a resident of Ihiagwa in Imo State, has narrated to FIJ how police officers in the state assaulted her and her siblings.

Her ordeal began on March 9 when police officers arrested Solomon, her brother, for snatching a phone belonging to one of his debtors.

FIJ had reported how Solomon, in his bid to recover ₦7,800 from this debtor, snatched the phone and was charged for robbery by the police after arrest.

Chidiebube filmed the policemen violently assaulting her brother, and in the clip she published on Twitter, a policeman in mufti can be seen cocking his gun in preparation to shoot.

“I later saw my brother in the station with wounds on his body,” Chidiebube told FIJ. “A nurse was treating him but there was blood all over, and he was still bleeding.”

After Solomon’s arrest, the police invited Chidiebube to the station on the same day. She went with four of her other siblings, but on their way, a policewoman and two policemen accosted them, and the encounter became violent.

Both Chidiebube and Henry Okoye, the spokesman for the Imo State Police Command, confirmed to FIJ that there was violence, but while Chidiebube said that the police pounced on one of her sisters, Okoye said the Ohadoma siblings attacked the police first.

1 NIGHT IN POLICE CELL, 13 IN OWERRI PRISON

Chidiebube told FIJ that when the police were beating her sister, she and a schoolboy filmed the incident. This boy would end up in a police cell, face a magistrate and then spend two weeks in a prison cell, accused of assault alongside the siblings.

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“The young boy, Onyema, came out of a cyber cafe and saw the police assaulting my sister, so he started recording them with his phone,” Chidiebube told FIJ. “I also stood in a corner to record, while one of my sisters, Chizaram, was watching them too.

“As the assault was ongoing, two policemen in uniforms arrived the scene and joined in the beating. They spotted Onyema, dragged him, slapped him and took his phone. They said, ‘You want to be a cameraman, you saw policemen and you were recording.’

“When they saw I was recording too, a policeman approached me where I was hiding in a church building. When I saw him coming, I posted the video on Twitter. He dragged my phone, then they carried Onyema and Chidinma to the station. The rest of us followed.”

Chidiebube said only Chidinma and Onyema were arrested, but when they all arrived at the station, policemen dragged them all behind the counter, denied them access to their family and lawyer, and then arraigned them before a magistrate the following day.

They all spent a night in the station, and 13 nights in the state correctional facility in Owerri, the state capital.

“They injured my sister on her shoulder and eye,” Chidiebube said of the police.

5 PHONES DETAINED BY POLICE AS ‘EXHIBITS’

Chidiebube told FIJ that upon satisfying their bail conditions, the magistrate let all the arrested parties go but the police refused to return their phones.

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“They told us that our phones were exhibits and they would not give them back to us until the case was over. They still have my brother in their custody for robbery,” she told FIJ.

When FIJ called Okoye, he said the DPO of the station was supposed to have released the phones since the accused had been let go.

He said it was standard practice for the police to collect personal effects of people arrested and return them later. The parties were released on March 23, but their phones were not returned.

Okoye said, “They injured our personnel too. This case is already in court, and I think we should wait for the verdict. It is a culture that when we arrest suspects, we collect their properties. They should go meet the DPO and collect their phones.

“If the suspects controlled their temperament, they could have resolved it. When we send police to effect arrests, suspects fight the police.”

He said if the Ohadoma siblings approached the DPO, they would get their phones back. But Chidiebube is wary of approaching the police station again.

When FIJ spoke to her, she said she did not want to visit the police station again following her last experience. As of press time, the phones remained in police custody, and so did her brother.

Schoolboy lands in prison for filming police officers assaulting young man