ODAHIEKWU OGUNDE, YENAGOA
Mother of one Mr Eze Amadi, Mrs Felagha Ayibakuro, has told the Bayelsa State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality and Extra-judicial Killings how the police murdered her son during a peaceful protest.
Ayibakuro said her son was murdered when the non-academic staff of the Niger Delta University (NDU), Amassoma, were protesting against their alleged unlawful sack from work in May 2018.
Under cross-examination, Ayibakuro recounted that her son, who was a final year student of Fine and Applied Arts in the same University, was killed by police deployed in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area of the state.
She said: “I am a farmer and one-time head of cleaners in Post-graduate Diploma office of the NDU. On May 22, 2018, I led my colleagues, mostly women, to protest against our unlawful removal from work. I ensured that all the women were in front and men at the back while we embarked on the peaceful demonstration.
“We matched from the NDU old campus to Lecturers’ Lodge and on our way back from the lodge, a team of policemen, suspected to be SARS personnel, drove past us, turned around and facing us opened fire on us. In the commotion, I fell and saw my son running to rescue Jacob who had been shot. At the moment, he was also shot.
“Not too long after, I lost consciousness. By the time I woke up, I was told that my son was rushed to a native doctor that treats gunshot injuries in Toru-Ebeni where he died and later deposited at the Niger Delta University Teaching Hospital’s morgue in Okolobiri.”
She told the panel headed by retired Justice Emmanuel Ogola “to direct the state government to reinstate my employment and that of other workers that were unjustly sacked and for the police to pay compensation to my family for the extra-judicial killing of my son.”