The Senate has mandated the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) to pay N10million as compensation to the family of a final year student of the University of Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Chinedu Obi, allegedly killed by its personnel.
This directive followed the consideration of a report of the Senate Committee on Ethics and Public petition presented at plenary, yesterday.
The Senate committee, at the close of its investigation on the petition filed by the late Obi’s family lawyer, Omemiroro Ogedegbe, found the police guilty of extra-judicial killing of the young man.
The lawmakers said the amount was to help to mitigate the pains of late Chinedu Obi’s demise.
The Chairman of the Senate Committee on Ethics, Privileges and Public Petitions, Senator Ayo Akinyelure, in his presentation, reported that the late Obi was arrested on July 19, 2019, after a disagreement with a phone seller, who accused him of assaulting her.
According to a petition to the Senate by Ogedegbe, the undergraduate met his untimely death at Otta where he visited his friend in a controversial circumstance in the custody of the police, who denied him access to his family and medicare.
According to the report, late Chinedu had issues with a phone seller at Otta, which led to his arrest.
Testifying before the Senate committee, Ogedegbe said the deceased did not resist arrest contrary to a claim by the police.
The Deputy Commissioner of Police, Ogbadu Aliyu, in his presentation, had claimed that the deceased was arrested, detained and later granted bail.
“That after his release, he went back to the woman and started beating her and even tried to throw her down from a story building,” he said.
The police boss said the deceased when rearrested became violent and tried to demobilise an officer, who shot him on his buttock instead of one his legs that he aimed.
But Ogedegbe, who countered the presentation, stated that the deceased was shot from behind in the right buttock, “which meant that it was not the officer he was alleged to be pursuing that turned round and shot him from behind.
“That all entreaties by the deceased who was in the pool of his own blood to speak to his father were rebuffed by the officers of the NPF who allowed him to die before taking him to Otta General Hospital.
“That the men of the police force lied as the deceased neither committed a capital offence, resisted arrest nor was he armed at the point of his arrest.”
But Senator Akinyelure, in the report, observed that the offence of assault alleged by the phone seller was not a capital offence and should not have led to the suspect being handcuffed.
“That the men of the NPF did not handle the matter professionally, and therefore, the force is culpable over the death of Obi.”
The Senate condemned the action of the police for the unprofessional manner it handled the civil matter between the phone seller and the late Obi.
The plenary, presided over by Deputy Senate President, Ovie Omo-Agege, urged the police to fish out the personnel who shot the late Obi to death for prosecution, according to the laws of the land.

By: Nneka Amaechi-Nnadi, Abuja