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The Police recently told an Abuja High Court handling the trial of some policemen charged with the killing of six traders from Apo Village that they were not ready to continue with the trial.
The Police recently told an Abuja High Court handling the trial of some policemen charged with the killing of six traders from Apo Village that they were not ready to continue with the trial. Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr. Danjuma Ibrahim, and five others are the accused persons. The Police said they wanted to put their house in order and requested for a long adjournment. The case was consequently adjourned to September with no fixed date, in spite of the cooperation of the trial judge, Justice Hussain Muktar, who saw the case as one which needed speedy hearing. The judge even volunteered to forfeit part of his vacation to fast-track the trial.
This counts among the various obstacles deliberately erected by the Police to shield those involved in the Apo killing from justice. The plot to cover up the heinous crime started earlier, with the claims by the Police that the Apo Six were armed robbers.
The killing, allegedly perpetrated by the accused policemen, was reportedly triggered by a quarrel between DCP Danjuma and the victims. Some of the victims were shot dead on the spot. Of the remaining, one male reportedly escaped into the bush with bullet wounds, while the only female was allegedly strangled to death. The fleeing victim was also caught and killed by a Police patrol team.
A photographer invited to take shots of the victims disclosed that the Police gave him (photographer) two local pistols, two daggers and one machete to put by the side of the victims, to portray them as armed robbers. In all of these, the names of DCP Danjuma; the Divisional Police Officer in charge of Garki Division, Abuja, Mr. Abdulsalam Othman; and their boys on patrol duty, featured prominently.
On June 8, the Police, assisted by some Abuja council officials, without the mandatory post mortem, hurriedly took the six corpses for burial. Apo Village residents got wind of the development, trailed the council officials and seized the corpses. Police reinforcement allegedly led by DPO Othman recovered the corpses from the residents and led the council officials to where they eventually buried them.
Strident public outcry that the victims were not armed robbers compelled the Police to set up a panel headed by Mr. Mike Okiro, a Deputy Inspector General of Police, to unravel the truth. Twists and turns trailed the Okiro Panel. DPO Othman, when he first appeared before the panel, denied knowing where the victims were buried. He recanted the story the second time he appeared, saying he escorted the council officials to where they buried the corpses. A member of the squad who offered to help the prosecution, Private Anthony Idah, died mysteriously a day before he was to testify before the Okiro Panel.
The FG soon got fed up with the cruel drama and set up the Olasumbo Goodluck-led public inquiry into the killing on June 24. In his memorandum to the inquiry, the Acting Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Sunday Ehindero, described the killing as 'premeditated, reprehensible, unjustifiable and inexcusable." Before then, the IG had trivialised the summary execution as a case of poor professional judgement. Few days later, the Police arrested the suspected killers, prominent among whom were Danjuma and Othman and detained them at the Force Headquarters in Abuja. Othman escaped some hours later and is yet to be rearrested. Danjuma, on the other hand, claims that Ehindero and DIG Ogbonna Onovo visited him in prison and mounted pressure on him to change his original statement on the case.
It was the Police that hurriedly arraigned the remaining suspects in court in their desperate bid to halt the Goodluck-led inquiry. That plot has failed. Now the Police say they are not ready for the trial. Is the Federal Government waiting for the Police High Command to use the enormous state powers at its disposal to pervert justice in this matter before sanitising the system?
The Punch, Friday, July 29, 2005