JOSHUA CHRISTOPHER, shares the ordeal of a victim of defunct Special Anti Robbery Squad and his walk to cell in this exclusive.
Although Ogbonna Osi (not real name) was a bad boy, he was innocent of the accusations of SARS.
It was the morning of the day Osi, returned from a visit to my sister at Onitsha, in Nnamdi Azikiwe University.
I was at Unizik Junction when I heard that I was declared wanted in the hostel, following the ransacking done by criminals who came to my hostel that night to rob.
Everyone had concluded it must have been me.
Then, the president of the hall overrode the school system and handed me over to state security instead of the appropriate school authorities to decide my case. When I got there, I discovered that I could in no way have met those men, so, the chief security called my attention and set me free after a lot of interrogation.
After that, I returned to the hostel to amazement of everyone.
The next plan was to set me up with SARS.
I was sleeping in the morning when around 3.am, everyone was awoken by this strange sound. I peered through a hole in my door to check what was going on. By instinct, I knew they were Awkuzu SARS, and I knew they were coming for me because everyone in that hostel had tagged me a crook while I was just a guy trying to get along with everyone.
The group of men walked straight to my room and identified themselves as SARS officers. Tears dropped down my cheeks when they started their jangoism, shooting on the road – a sign that tells anyone who cares that they have caught a criminal.
Handcuffed, I was taken down from their van, then they walked me down to a guard room where I was hearing all kinds of gunshots, and whimpers of men who were being shot to death.
I couldn’t get the attention of my people because I wasn’t getting a ward to help me communicate with them and they all were adamant to hear my own side of the story.
In there, an inmate, a student of Unizik, heard his father had been asking after him, of which they said they had no idea. Later, when he was told that his father had been coming for three months, he was afraid to speak up because most of the people he was arrested with had been shot and few released, when people came for them. But, he was later released as his father came with soldiers after hearing from outsiders that his son was with SARS men.
I was scared that I would die in there. I was given panadol without meals in the cell.
Thankfully, I was released by a man whom I randomly entertained with my football skills, who kept asking after me.
Now, am here i support a focus on #EndSARS.
