One of the ladies, Maryam Olofo, said “after a birthday party at E-lounge at Wuse 2 Abuja, organized by an Airtel staff, we were inside our cars waiting for some friends at 1.30 am, when people who look like thugs, attacked us.”
She said some ladies, including a corps member were dragged inside a bus and stripped naked, while others that came in cars to the party were asked to drive their vehicles to the AEPB’s office where they were impounded and the occupants equally maltreated.
“When we got to the board’s office at Area 3, Abuja, they asked us to pay N5,000 each and when we refused, they brutalized as well as tortured us to admit we were prostitutes,” Maryam Olufo added.
Maryam, who is a graduate, said the AEPB officials and policemen in the place kept calling them prostitutes.
Another victim, a female corps member, who had serious bruises all over her body, said she cannot swallow food easily because of the torture melted on her by AEPB officials.
Our reporter visited two ladies in a hospital and discovered that one of them had a serious cut on her leg which she alleged was caused by an AEPB official on that day.
Also commenting on the incident, Garki Divisional Police Officer said one of the suspects sent a distress call to him at about 3:26 am that day.
He said the lady informed him that they were coming back from a party when some people with the assistance of policemen brutalized them and were taking them to an undisclosed place.
“The lady called back and said they were at AEPB’s office at Area 3 and I asked her to give the phone to any policeman in the place so that I could find out what was happening, since the place is under my jurisdiction,” the divisional police officer stated.
He said a policeman in the place spoke rudely to him on phone and he went to the office with a patrol team and introduced himself as the divisional police officer of Garki at the gate but was told that they were instructed not to allow anybody inside the place.
The police officer said he then directed the gateman to call the most senior person available for him to speak with and even beckoned at mobile policemen in the place to open the gate after introducing himself but they walked away.
“The policemen in my team were shocked and while waiting for signals after radioing my colleagues, I saw a completely naked lady crying inside the compound and before I knew what was happening, the officials inside the place started throwing bottles at us indiscriminately, while the policemen there shot their guns sporadically.
I called my boss to give update reports to him, and he asked me to pull my patrol team out of the place, while I ran into a police van to escape death.
The divisional police officer, who sustained a deep cut on his right foot, was rushed to Asokoro General Hospital, while his car was vandalized completely in front of the board’s office.
He said when he got back to AEPB’s office at 7 am Saturday, he saw a lady, whose leg was almost cut off in the place and rushed her to the hospital.
“I am a passionate man; I was devastated seeing innocent girls stripped naked and victimized unjustly,” the police officer lamented.
An injured policeman in the divisional police officer’s team that night, Corporal Hassan of Mopol 50, said from his hospital’s bed that he followed his superior officer to the environmental office to rescue ladies, who were stripped naked and before he knew what was happening, uniformed men started shooting and throwing bottles at them, which cut his left thigh.
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Female suspects narrate ordeal at AEPB’s office