Man suffers memory lapse after Police torture, demands N7m compensation

 

BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO                    

A petitioner, Elusanmi Kolawole, on Thursday, narrated how he had been suffering memory lapse since he was severely tortured by the Police.

Kolawole said he had been spending N15,000 monthly on medication as prescribed by his doctor to cure the internal injuries he sustained after being brutalised.

Kolawole who claimed to have been defrauded of his car by a police officer, told the Osun Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, Human Rights Violations and Related Extra Judicial Killings, that he was beaten to a pulp before his car was taken away to an unknown destination.

The petitioner demanded for a sum of N7million compensation to assuage the adverse effects of the incident.

While being cross-examined by the respondent’s counsel, Kolawole said he had been suffering memory lapse due to the degrees of injury he sustained from the police assaults.

Narrating how he was allegedly duped by the Police, the petitioner recalled that one Superintendent Ayuba, a police officer serving in Ogun State then bundled him out of his house in Osogbo and tortured him from Osogbo to Ilesa.

Kolawole who had approached the panel to seek justice, accused the officer of complicity, fraud and stealing by trick.

According to him, the alleged police officer accused him of buying a stolen vehicle, a claim which he said he refuted when he gave the officers the documents of the car.

He said, “It is unfortunate that I have been turned to what I am today. As you can see, I have been suffering from memory loss due to the incident of police brutality which I was a victim of.

“What actually happened was that I was in my house that fateful day when I saw about five fully-armed police officers who had come to arrest me. I was beaten mercilessly and forced into the vehicle.

“I was hit repeatedly on the head with different harmful weapons they took along and I was taken to Ilesa, the residence of the person that I sold the vehicle to.

“The injuries I sustained particularly on the head have been disturbing me till now to the extent that I hardly remember past occurrences. The ugly incident had caused a lot of damage to the extent that I spent N15,000 every month to buy drugs.”

The chairman of the Panel, Justice Akin Oladimeji (retd) adjourned the case to March 26, 2021, for further hearing.