….Demands justice, seized phone be returned
Joy Anyim
39-year-old school teacher, Ibe Edith Chinyere, who was assaulted by men of the Government Monitoring Team (GMT), at Alausa, has appealed to the Lagos State Governor, Babajide Sanwo-Olu and the State Commissioner of Police to bring the perpetrators to book.
Chinyere who now frequents the Lagos University Teaching Hospital (LUTH), following injuries sustained in the head and other parts of her body during the assault said she was still being threatened by the perpetrators.
Narrating how it all started, the Imo-born Chinyere said she was heading for an appointment in Alausa on December 9, 2019, when she saw the GMT officers, manhandling two commercial motorcyclists and their passengers, hitting them with a big plank.
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Moved with compassion as the victims bleed from different parts of their body, she intervened in the matter, asking why the brutality and the victims told her their story.
Chinyere who said her plan was to call the attention of the police to the act, said she brought out her phone to film the scene of the incident and the extent of harm done to the victims before taking them to the hospital.
It was at this point that officials of the GMT pounced on her, hitting her with a plank. And the also pushed her. She fell, hitting her head on the ground.
She said her phone was also seized, while she was dragged to the Alausa Police Division where the case was twisted in favour of her assaulters, making her the assaulter, while the GMT officials became the victims.
Chinyere said she was given another round of beating by the police, which led to seizures, a health condition she had been battling with for years. She said she had only woken up to see herself on the hospital bed.
She also alleged that the whole drama played out on the watch of men from the Rapid Response Squad (RRS), who were just a stone throw from the scene.
Telling the story in her own words, she said: “On Monday around 11 a.m., I was on my way to Alausa, when I saw GMT Officers hitting two men with a very long wood and I got closer to them and asked the men what was the problem. As the men were talking to me and I was videoing with my phone, one of the GMT Officers turned back, dragged my phone, slapped me and pushed me to the floor and I hit my head on the floor.
“I got up asking for my phone, he pushed me down again and ran away, I got up, ran after him and passers-by came out, shouting thief! thief! He turned back and dragged me to their office in Alausa and his boss came out, drove away passersby, locked up the gate and asked me to hold the officer. I asked why. He ordered the officers to beat me until I obey.
“I immediately did as he ordered, and he asked them to take pictures and tagged it ‘Woman Assaulting Officer’, he went further by taking us to Alausa Police Station. We got there and he told the police officers there that I slapped five officers and assaulted one of them. Without listening to my own side of the story, the police humiliated me. They beat me until I started having seizures. I was admitted in LUTH for 24 hours, and since Monday I have been going in and out of LUTH for observation because the left side of my head has been aching and for now, I do not have the money required for MRI and EEG (brain scan).”
The assault victim who said she is also diabetic said she wanted her seized phone returned as well as justice.
“The doctor at LUTH gave me some drugs to prevent further complications in the brain. Being a seizure patient and also diabetes type 1, my life is in danger here. My phone is still with them till date. I also want justice,” she said.
While also taking the reporter down memory lane, Chinyere said this was not the first time law enforcement officers were assaulting her.
According to her, the seizures she was experiencing was caused by police brutality she suffered in 1997 when she was only 15 years old.
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Accused of stealing from her aunt then, Chinyere said she was taken to the police station, where policemen who tortured her, sprayed teargas directly to her face.
It was years after the experience that the seizure started. The long use of her medication also destroyed her pancreas, making her diabetic.
On the said threat by the GMT officials, she said, “They are trying to use someone close to me to instill fears in me. Imagine someone who was trying to free me from these officers, telling me now that she doesn’t have time for any case. She deleted all the pictures and videos she took and said I should get the doctor’s report, so she can use it to collect my phone. She went further to say if I should push further, I will be jailed. If exposing the heinous crime this supposed government officials are perpetrating is the last thing I will do in life, then I am in for it.”