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General News of Friday, 2 April 2021

Source: saharareporters.com

20-year-old narrates how he lost limb to police shooting in Imo

20-year-old Chigaemezu Ojinaka narrates his ordeal to the panel 20-year-old Chigaemezu Ojinaka narrates his ordeal to the panel

A victim of police brutality, 20-year-old Chigaemezu Ojinaka has lodged complaints at the Imo State Independent Investigative Panel on Human Rights Violations by the defunct Special Anti-Robbery Squad and other units of Nigeria Police Force.

The petitioner on Thursday alleged that he was shot in the leg by one of the two policemen that accosted him on April 14, 2020, when he was on a visit to his ailing father in a hospital.

The sad experience cost him one of his legs thereby aborting his ambition of becoming a professional footballer in life.

Ojinaka asked the panel to find and prosecute the two trigger-happy cops and also demanded that he should be compensated for losing a limb in the process.

This was contained in the tweet made by the National Human Rights Commission on Friday, that “Another Petitioner at the Panel, 20-year-old Chigaemezu Ojinaka narrated how @PoliceNG's officers shot him at close range and deformed his limb, killing his dream of becoming a professional footballer.”

Ojinaka, born of Nigerian and Ukrainian parents, narrated how he felt insecure anytime he heard the word police because the security agents wanted him dead that fateful day.
He said they also called him a criminal.

He said after he was shot at close range by the policeman, he was rushed to a hospital that rejected him, but was eventually attended to at the Federal Medical Centre, in Owerri, the Imo State capital.

The panel after hearing the petition urged the police to flush out the perpetrators and bring them to justice.

It adjourned the sitting to April 29, 2020.