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.”
http://www.thisdaylive.com/articles/massob-insists-on-justice-for-the-apo-six/135595/

RIP to the deceased, what a useless country!

Uwazuruike should also direct his anger and threat to boko haram for the constant killings of igbos in the north which have almost become a daily occurrence. meanwhile RIP to all igbos who have been unjustly killed.

........here goes uwazuruke again, putting the igbo cart infront of the horse.

stupid shyyt! ultimatum is end of the year, political "bandwaggoning" and rivalry will be raising high dust by then and everyone who is everyone is scampering for a tent to camp in and unwilling to be labeled biafran or massob sympathiser.

Are they still debating?

I am not as much as a fan of Uwazurike but the the case of the Apo six celebrated murder and how it has been handled is a case in point that Nigeria is a fraud.

DO,don't talk.

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