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After Killing My Husband, Police Detained Me For Four Days – Edo Woman Tells EndSARS Panel

December 8, 2020

Imaikop said the SARS operatives shot dead her husband, a farmer, and three labourers that he hired to help him work in his farm in Uteh village, in the Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State in 2013.

A widow, Mrs Patience Imaikop, has told members of the Edo State Judicial Panel of Enquiry how the men of the now-disbanded Special Anti-Robbery Squad killed her husband, and after that detained her in their station without food and water for four days.

Imaikop said the SARS operatives shot dead her husband, a farmer, and three labourers that he hired to help him work in his farm in Uteh village, in the Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo State in 2013.

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The widow lamented that the police branded her husband the leader of a robbery gang.

She said the bad label came from an altercation that her late husband had with the SARS men, a few days before his killing.

Imaikop noted that it was a high court order, after so much pressure from the family that mandated that the police exhume the bodies for an autopsy.

She said the autopsy revealed that her husband and his workers were shot by the SARS while demanding N50million compensation to assuage the pains the family had been going through.

She said, "The police loaded the dead bodies of my husband and his three labourers into their van while an officer drove my husband's vehicle along with them to the station.

"When I got the news of my husband's death, I hurriedly rushed to the scene of the incident, hired a car and I traced them to their station which happened to be the Edo State Police Command Headquarters in GRA, Benin City.

"When I got to the police station, I identified myself as the wife of Mr. Samuel Imaikop.

"I was severely beaten up, accused of being a wife of the leader of an armed robbery gang. I was detained for four nights without food and water, and even without them taking my statement. I was released five days later after the intervention of my lawyer.

"To cover their evil deeds, the police hurriedly buried my husband and the labourers which he hired from 2+2 junction, a popular spot around the Aduwawa-Eyaen axis of the Benin-Auchi Express road."