Justice for Alex Ogbu, Four Years after Nigeria Police Remains Complicit.

Press Statement
Justice for Alex Ogbu, Four Years after Nigeria Police Remains Complicit.
We welcome everyone to this press conference. It is indeed an important event and we appreciate you allfor coming.
As we will remember, five years ago, exactly on 21 of January 2020. Comrade Alex Ogbu was brutally shot and killed by men of Nigeria Police on January 21, 2020, during a protest by the Shiites in Berger roundabout, Abuja.
Since the gruesome murder of Alex Ogbu, his family, friends and Comrades have been crying for justice and have taken several steps in this regard, including medical, political and legal steps. Permit us to inform you that five years down the line, we are still in this struggle for justice because as law abiding citizens, we believe one of the inalienable rights we hold as citizenry is right to judicial redress. We therefore saw to it to activate this mechanism to get Justice for Comrade Alex Ogbu.
Of cause, while not loosing cognizance of the fact that, no amount of (posthumous) justice will ever bridge the irreparable loss that befell the family and Alex’s comrades but then, for history and also towards ensuring that trigger -happy, brutal, unprofessional and killer Police Officers who populate the rank and file of the Nigeria Police Force are exposed and duly sanctioned and weeded out.
As a way of update, let us bring to your collective knowledge that, after more than three years of legal battle, on Wednesday, June 21st, 2023 Justice Mohammed Abubakar of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), sitting at Court 58 in Kurudu, Abuja, ordered the Nigeria Police Force to pay the sum of N50,000,000 (fifty million Naira) to the family of the late Comrade Alex Ogbu as compensation for his killing.Till date since after the Judgement cum Court Order, the police has not complied with this Order. It also did not appeal againstit, and so it simply treated the Pronouncement of a competent Court of the Land with pure scorn and impunity.
Several efforts have been made to make the Police see reason and obey court Judgement, but all has no far not yielded desired results as the Police authorities have adamantly ignored the court order and deliberately frustrated all attempts to pay the family the judgement Sum awarded it.
Letters have been written to the Police Service Commission, the Ministry of Police affairs, National Assembly and Inspector General of Police on this issue. Distinguished Senator Abba Morro has also written to the Inspector General of Police to honour the judgement but was also met with rebuff.
This Press conference is therefore to bring these to the knowledge of the world, to let the World know that the Police has refused to obey a duly pronounced Court Order and also the travails of the family in the face of the impunity of the Police by their conduct through these years. The poor grieving family till date has through not received apology nor any compensation whatsoever, for the act. Comrade Ogbu left behind an unemployed wife with a two years old daughter, now six years old.
Comparatively, four after killing of Comrade Alex Ogbu while on duty as a Journalist, similar police brutality was recorded in far away Minneapolis, United States of America with the killing of Gorge Floyd, and we saw how swiftly the council and US Government quickly brought justice to the family left behind and the correctional measures they took to minimise such occurrence and here we are five years after this irreplaceable and gruesome killing we are still seeking for justice and importantly also to recall that he is a member of Nigeria Union of Journalists NUJ among others and yet being met with such treatment without seemingly even a fight from the organisation he belonged to, really puts some question marks on it and other hard working members alive.
We want to use this auspicious occasion to passionately appeal to well-meaning Nigerians from all walks of life and Organisations to join us to compel the Nigeria Police force to obey court judgement and order. The last four years have been traumatising for the family and his comrades. We cannot rank ourselves as a country with law and order when the primary law enforcement agency like the Nigerian Police Force cannot obey nor honour court judgement.
We therefore AGAIN, call on the Nigeria Police to immediately obey the court Order and pay the family of the departed Comrade. Let us make it clear here that, we will not relent in the struggle until justice is served. It is only justice that can give us hope that we can end police brutality and that the family and comrades left behind by the Alex Ogbu. The IGP and the Nigerian police force obeying the court judgement will stand as some level of healing to the already bad situation we have suffered with regards to police brutality and help in deterrence to other reckless and lawless police officers who may want to venture into the abhorrent route of extra judicial killings in the future.
We also want to make it clear that, we will again picket the Nigeria Police headquarters and also mobilise our comrades in diaspora to do same at a selected cities and important areas in no distant time if the Court Judgement is not obeyed.
We thank you all for coming.