MASSOB Leader, Mr. Ralph Uwazurike
By Christopher Isiguzo
If there was any needed example to prove that justice delayed is justice denied, it is in the case of the Apo Six, an appellation that has stuck to a group of Igbo that were unlawfully killed by the police in Abuja eight years ago.
Ifeanyi Ozo, Chinedu Meniru, Isaac Ekene, Paulinus Ogbonna, Anthony Nwokike and Augustina Arebun, all aged between 21 and 25 years, were murdered by the police on June 8, 2005 and nearly eight years after, their parents are still seeking justice.
The five young traders were murdered in cold blood in 2005 shortly after leaving Grand Mirage Hotel, Abuja where they went for a party. The sixth victim, Arebun, who visited her boyfriend, Uzor, had accompanied them to the outing. While the police shot the five boys dead, Arebun was strangled to death in a bid to stop her from contradicting the police version of the incident.
The incident sparked a two-day riot in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. Not so much because the police killed the innocent young men and a lady, but more because of the careful scheme of the police to label the victims as armed robbers. The uproar had forced the then Inspector General of Police (IG), Tafa Balogun, to set up a panel of enquiry headed by Mike Okiro. Not sure what verdict the police panel will return, the then President Olusegun Obasanjo set up a Commission of Inquiry chaired by Justice Olasumbo Goodluck. Both the Okiro and Goodluck panels declared that the Apo Six were murdered innocently.
The commission besides clearing the victims of the allegation that they were armed robbers, recommended that the bodies of the deceased should be exhumed for proper burial, which should be funded by the Federal Government. It also recommended that the police officers who were behind the dastardly act should be prosecuted for multiple first degree murder.
In compliance with the recommendation of the commission, the Federal Government on December 4, 2005 gave the victims proper burial as their bodies were taken to their respective states having given each of the families N3 million, while the eight police officers involved in the act were charged to court for murder.
But eight years after, those responsible for their killings have not been brought to book. Their trial has witnessed many twists and turns.
For failing to deliver justice in the case, the leader of Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra (MASSOB), Mr. Ralph Uwazurike, has given the judiciary an ultimatum to ensure justice by the end of the year.
He threatened that if nothing was done by then, he would mobilise people to protest the undue delay in the case.
He issued the threat after the parents and relations of the victims sought his intervention as a last resort to entreat him to take up the “buried” case of their children.
Briefing journalists on the issue, Uwazurike said the parents and relations of the victims besieged his house in Owerri insisting that anything short of justice in the matter would not be acceptable to them.
He expressed dismay that eight years after the six persons were killed, nothing serious is being done to bring the culprits to justice. He therefore asked the Federal Government to initiate actions aimed at ensuring that the matter is ended before the end of this year, failing which he said he would mobilise his members to make the country “ungovernable”.
THISDAY checks revealed that the legal procedure has suffered so much manipulation aimed at stalling the trial. Although bail, for instance should not be granted to suspects in a murder case such as this, the trial judge, Justice Isyaku Bello, granted it. The prime suspect, Ibrahim Danjuma, a Deputy Commissioner of Police, had claimed that he was suffering from diabetes, ulcer and heart problem.
To further stall the case, the fifth accused policeman, Ezekiel Acheneje, seems to have perfected the act of hiring and firing his lawyers so that the case can be adjourned as many times as possible, because the law requires that a murder suspect must be represented by a lawyer.
What is worse, the DPO of the Apo Police Station, Othman Abdulsalam, where the victims were killed, escaped from police custody since 2005 and has remained at large till today.
However, while other seven officers involved in the act have remained in prison custody since then, Danjuma who allegedly led others in shooting the six Apo traders secured bail since 2006. The case has since then been floundering under Justice Bello and has witnessed many adjournments.
Dismayed by the development, Uwazurike asked the Federal Government to ensure that the case is ended before the end of the year, noting that the unnecessary delay in the court process was making the relatives of the victims to begin to lose hope in the process and are accordingly suspecting “foul play along the line”.
He further asked Ndigbo all over the world to begin to observe June 8 every year with effect from 2013 as work-free day to mark the gruesome killing of the Igbo traders as well as the plethora of injustices being meted out against the Igbo before the international community.
He pointed out that, “Rev. King who killed one member of his church was sentenced to death within six months but policemen who killed six young Igbo traders are still there eight years after and even their ring leader is walking the streets having secured bail for first degree murder. I am interested in this case because of the injustices against our people in Nigeria. We have two types of laws in Nigeria, one for Igbo and one for others. Once it involves Igbo, we are doomed. The DCP is roaming the streets as if nothing has happened; while others are in detention.
“It’s not a matter of compensation; it’s a matter that has to do with an Igbo man being killed like an animal in a country we jointly own. Someone killed six people and is roaming the streets. I want to say that Ndigbo will like to see the end of the case.”
Continuing, the MASSOB leader said: “If nothing happens by the end of the year in this matter, we’ll make the country ungovernable. We’ll tell them that Igbo man cannot be killed like chicken in Nigeria. We must follow this case to a logical conclusion. We know our people are being killed daily in the North, especially in the course of the Boko Haram upsurge, but if they are now making a concrete statement to the effect that our security is no more guaranteed, then we know what to do.”
