A woman, Chinwedu Igwe, who was groaning in pain after a
policeman attacked and kicked her in the stomach in the Pako area of Lagos
State, has been arrested and detained at Idimu Police Station by the same
policeman.
This was revealed by
the husband of the woman who was still in detention as at press time, Samuel
Igwe.
The lady’s husband,
who ran to the Executive Director of Esther Child Rights Foundation, Esther
Ekwe, a human rights activist, said a policeman kicked his wife in the stomach
with his booted leg, plunging her into unimaginable pain.
He explained that he
was in his office on Tuesday when he received a call that a policeman had brutalized
his wife.
He left everything and
raced to his wife’s shop at Pako.
He said: “The whole
street was in disarray.
“There was a crowd and
broken bottles everywhere.
“The shop was locked,
and I couldn’t find my wife.
“I started looking for
her.
“I later found her
sitting somewhere and crying.
“She was in pain.
“She said that a fat
policeman used his booted leg to kick her in the stomach.
“While she was
narrating the incident, I had already called someone that would take us to the
hospital.
“Suddenly, police
people came and arrested her.
“They refused to grant
her bail, saying that she would be taken to court tomorrow.
“My wife has a stomach
ulcer.
“She has not eaten.
“She’s in pain.”
Igwe further stated he
gathered that street urchins, cyclists and policemen were fighting before one
of the cyclists ran into his wife’s shop, seeking a haven, that was how his
wife’s trouble started.
The wife’s sister,
Favour, who witnessed the whole drama, said that when she and Chinwedu noticed
that the police, street urchins and cyclists were about to fight, they decided
to close shop.
She said that such
fights had become usual and most times policemen end up swooping on the
innocent to arrest and detain.
The sisters were about
to pack their food items and close the shop when a young cyclist ran into their
shop, pursued by two policemen.
One of the policemen
was in mufti, the other was in uniform.
While one of them
tried to handcuff the man, the other pointed his gun at Favour, threatening to
shoot.
According to Favors,
petrified out of her wit, she started screaming.
She narrated: “When I
saw the gun pointed at me, I started screaming.
“How could a policeman
enter our shop and then point his gun at me?
“I was scared.
“I sell food, I do not
ride a motorcycle and I am not an agbero.
“I didn’t commit any
crime.
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