The lawyer of the female National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, Jennifer Elobor, assaulted by local security agents in Anambra State, Cyrus Onu, says his client is still traumatized by the very ugly incident.
Onu said the security outfit, code-named Operation-Udo-Ga-Achi, threatened to rape and kill her for speaking out during the incident.
He said, “They [security agents] were banging the door, and Jennifer was trying to open the door, and they just kicked the door, and it almost hit their face.
“Most of them were masked in mufti with guns, so you can imagine how scared the kids [Corps members] were.
“They [security agents] didn’t give any identification. They just said, ‘Come down, come down. You’re all thieves! You’re all ‘Yahoo people!’
Onu said on Channels Television, “When they tried to drag them downstairs, Jennifer was insisting that if they must take them anywhere, they should allow them [Corps members] to call their LGI [Local Government Inspector] because the Corps members did not know who the operatives were.”
“That was when they started pouncing on her. They made derogatory comments, asking her who gave her the right as a lady to speak to them anyhow. They started beating her.
He added, “She asked them to allow her to change into something appropriate, and they said, ‘That thing you’re trying to cover, we’ll see it today. We’ll beat you up, we’ll rape you, kill you, and dump you, and nobody can say anything.”
The lawyer also claimed that the Anambra security agents threatened to kill her colleagues for trying to defend her.
In a video that went viral, the operatives armed with guns stormed the Corps members’ apartment in the Oba community of Anambra State.
The agents who were members of the Operation ‘Udo Ga-Achi,’ also known as the Agunechemba Vigilante Group, were seen beating Elobor and tearing her clothes.
The state government, through the Special Adviser to Governor Soludo on Community Security, Ken Emeakayi, while condemning the assault on the corps member, said on Wednesday that those involved had been arrested.
Emeakayi also said that the operatives involved had been suspended, and their final evaluation was in process.
“They are suspended because when a case has been established against someone, you arrest the person, then hand him over to the police.
Also reacting to the development, the Anambra State Police Command condemned in strong terms the alleged assault on the female NYSC member.
The state police spokesman, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, in a press statement on Tuesday, confirmed that the suspects involved in the incident had been identified.
Ikenga pointed out that the victim’s unavailability temporarily stalled the ongoing investigative process.
In the meantime, the National Coordinator of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, Emmanuel Onwubiko, said the governor, Prof. Chukwuma Soludo, must take personal responsibility for the flagrant disregard for the rule of law and the widespread human rights violations by operatives of the armed security agents, especially the largely untrained and unprofessional vigilantes.
Onwubiko alleged that humiliation and physical torture of a youth corps member, who is in Anambra State to serve her fatherland, must be the last, urging the government to set up a disciplinary agency similar to the Police Service Commission’s to oversee the operation of security agencies in Anambra State.
He pointed out, “Even as the Anambra State Government has condemned the assault on a National Youth Service Corps member, Jennifer Elobor, by members of the state security outfit, and those responsible have been identified, arrested, and detained, the state governor must take personal responsibility for the flagrant disregard for the rule of law and the widespread human rights violations by operatives of the armed security agents, especially the largely untrained and unprofessional vigilantes.
“HURIWA regrets that this evil maltreatment of a youth corps member by the Anambra State-sponsored armed vigilantes is not the first time, just as we assert that the armed vigilantes operate like primitive brutes with no regard for the fundamental human rights of the citizens.
“These vigilantes with poor training are behaving like wild animals and are responsible for some of the most primitive and despicable crimes against innocent traders in the different cities and towns of Anambra State, without the governor taking any measures to rein them in and compel them to abide by the due process of the law, since Anambra State is neither a zoo nor an animal farm.
