One of the #ENDSARS petitioners, Basil Ejiagwa who was scheduled to be heard on Tuesday at the Lagos Judicial Panel on Restitution for victims of brutality by the disbanded SARS operatives is dead.
The deceased’s cousin, Chukwu Vincent who testified before the panel said Basil died exactly a week ago, on the 17th of November, 2020.
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Basil Ejiagwa was the third #ENDSARS petitioner listed to be heard by the panel, but when his case was summoned, his counsel Olalekan Gazali told the panel that the petitioner was dead.
“We lost him last week as a result of the torture meted to him by SARS. His wife came to the panel all the way from Imo state, with his picture as evidence to show the state of his health. But unfortunately, the matter did not make it to the last sitting” the counsel explained.
The counsel then asked the panel to allow him to call on a family member to testify on his behalf.
“He’s being represented by a family member who had his death certificate, records on his hospital treatments and his hospital bills”, the counsel told the panel.
According to Basil, he was arrested by men of the police at Alaba, on his way home from work. They took him to Iba/Igando police station where he spent five days. There, they damaged his legs while hitting him with a hammer. He was later taken to Ikeja.
We rushed him to the El – Shaddai Hospital at Igando, hospital results said hitting was responsible.
He even travelled abroad at some time and and it was him who filled this case” the witness testified.
Vincent went on and explained that they noticed fissures on his head from where he (Basil) claimed to have been beaten by the police with their guns.
“He was diagnosed with a brain tumour. The incident happened in 2014, we tried to treat it till 2017 – I spent my money as well but as time passed, it got worse that he began to lose his memory”.
When his condition became too severe, the family decided to take him out of Lagos to the East, we searched for a good lawyer to take up the case” the witness explained.
The panel conceded to evidence of hospital document; including photocopies of drug prescription forms and a bill of N1million for his treatment.
The hospital document came from the Lagos State Government General Hospital in Alimosho and the El – Shaddai Hospital also, in the Iba/Igando area of the state.
The panel also conceded to a N40m judgement the deceased obtained in his favour from the Federal High Court, Lagos.
With the witness, the family is appealing to the #ENDSARS panel of inquiry to help implement judgement against the police, the judgement was said to have been delivered on the 16th of April, 2019.
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