Tell police to release my husband’s corpse, woman begs Anambra judicial panel

A widow, Mrs Chidinmma Precious Edozieuno, on Thursday recounted how her husband was allegedly taken away in 2017 and killed by the Special Anti Robbery Squad (SARS) in Awkuzu, Anara State.

Testifying before the Anambra Judicial Panel on activities of SARS, the widow asked the panel to give her good compensation for the loss of her husband and properties saying that his life cannot be restored.

She also asked that the body of her husband be given to her for burial and compensation for the household items taken from her home

Edozienu during an interview with journalists said her husband, Mr Johnson Edozienu, before his death was a businessman based in Benin Republic, but returned to Nigeria to see her and her newborn baby when he was whisked away by some officials of SARS.

She said: “We were in our house in Awka that fateful day in August 2017 when some gunmen broke into our house and took my husband. They also took away almost all our household properties and told me to go and marry another man – that this one is as good as dead.

“They said my husband was a kidnapper. I did not even know where they came from, and at first, I didn’t even know they were policemen.

“With the help of a friend, who is a police officer, we started looking for my husband. He took me to many police stations to know if they had him, but none of them had him. We went to Awkuzu SARS office, and that was where I saw three of the men who came and arrested my husband.

“I took a lawyer and we went to court. It was in court that the counsel representing SARS told us that my husband was dead. They said he was a kidnapper. I dated my husband for a long time before we got married. He is not a kidnapper. I lived in Benin and that was where we knew each other. I later relocated to Nigeria. My husband is from Aguleri.”

According to Mrs Edozieuno, items collected from her home by the SARS officers included a television set, laptop, refrigerator, a generator set, Wi-Fi and iPhone.

In his speech, the Chairman of the panel, Rtd Justice V.N Umeh, assured the widow that the petition was well-received and that it would go into investigation and make recommendations, after which she would be invited.