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The Oyo State Judicial Panel of Enquiry has, on Tuesday, held its final public panel sitting on petitions of police brutality and related extrajudicial killings, eight months after its inauguration by Governor Seyi Makinde.
During the final sitting held at the House of Chiefs, State Secretariat, Ibadan, the Chairman of the panel, Justice Badejoko Adeniji (rtd) disclosed that the panel attended to a total of 163 petitions.
Adeniji stated that the panel received and investigated petitions on police-related abuses, evaluated evidences presented by petitioners, looked at their surrounding circumstances and validity of complaints, among others.
While not giving a specific date, Adeniji said the panel’s recommendations of compensation, remedial measures and restitution for victims and petitioners would be handed over to the state government, in due course.
Governor Makinde had, on November 10, 2020, inaugurated the Oyo Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality in the state, in compliance with the directive of the federal government that states should set up panels of inquiry, following the #EndSARS protests.
At the final sitting, a petitioner, Mrs Oseni Fatiat, in a case against Inspector Clement Olarenwaju and the Inspector General of Police, demanded N10million as compensation for being brutalised by men of the Nigeria Police.
Oseni recounted that the police, on June 28, 2018, stormed her residence alleging that a vehicle parked in front of her house was stolen, reporting that she was whisked away and kept in police custody both at Dugbe, Ibadan and Ikeja, Lagos, for 15 days where she was hit by the butt of a gun on her knee and chest to confess to an allegation of robbery she knew nothing about.
With the police not present at the panel sitting to put up its defence, the Adeniji-led panel said it would forward its recommendation for remedial measures to the state government for consideration.
Also considered at Tuesday’s final sitting was the case between Pastor Ajayi Opeyemi and The Nigeria Police, Akanran Police Station, in respect of a building alleged to have been taken by the police.
While announcing the conclusion, Justice Adeniji appreciated Governor Makinde for appointing those she described as “men and women of integrity, probity and honest disposition” into the panel.
She appreciated the Secretary to the State Government, Mrs. Olubamiwo Adeosun, the Ministry of Justice, the Nigerian Bar Association and the police legal team, among others, for different roles played while the sittings lasted.
Lateefah Ibrahim
