Five Igbo traders from Apo auto spare parts market, Abuja, and a lady Tina Arebu, were murdered in cold blood for no reason on the orders of DCP Danjuma.
Exactly 21 years ago today, five Igbo traders, along with their female friend, were brutally murdered in cold blood by men of the Nigerian Police Force led by then-DCP Danjuma Ibrahim at a police checkpoint on Gimbiya Street, Area 11, Garki, Abuja, after the female victim turned down the romantic advances of the senior police officer at an evening gathering in the city.
The names of the five Igbo traders were:
(1) Ifeanyi Ozor
(2) Chinedu Meniru
(3) Anthony Nwokike
(4) Paulinus Ogbonna
(5) Ekene Isaac Mgbe, and
(6) Augustina Arebu, the only female victim and fiancée of Ifeanyi Ozor.
All six were traders at the Apo Auto Spare Parts Market, Abuja.
They were killed after DCP Danjuma made romantic advances to the only lady among them, Augustina (Tina) Arebu, at an evening gathering, which she rejected. A minor disagreement reportedly ensued, and the officer immediately stormed out of the gathering to the nearby police checkpoint on Gimbiya Street, where he told the policemen on duty that he had sighted a gang of armed robbers.
When the Apo Six drove to the checkpoint, Officer Danjuma reportedly blocked them with his vehicle and ordered the junior policemen on duty to open fire on them.
“Obey my last order,” Danjuma reportedly shouted. “Shoot them! Shoot them! They refused my advances.”
The junior policemen obeyed the order and opened fire on the innocent traders.
Four of the Apo Six were killed on the spot. The remaining two — the lady, Tina Arebu, and one of the five young men — were killed the following day.
According to the findings of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, Tina Arebu was strangled to death by DCP Danjuma Ibrahim.
This is according to the findings of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry set up by then-President Olusegun Obasanjo and headed by Justice O.O. Goodluck.
Immediately after the killings, the Nigerian Police reportedly went to work in a desperate bid to cover up the crime.
First, Officer Danjuma Ibrahim obtained weapons from the Garki Police Station, planted them inside the Peugeot 406 car of the victims, and ordered the official police photographer to take photographs in an attempt to create the false narrative that the innocent traders were armed robbers killed in a gun battle with the police.
However, both the Administrative Panel of Inquiry set up by the Police and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry established by the Federal Government concluded that DCP Danjuma led other officers in the killing of the six victims, including the strangulation of the only female among them and the burial of their bodies in shallow graves in what the Commission described as “a continuous single exercise of elimination to conceal facts.”
The Commission established the following facts: (Read carefully)
The Peugeot 406 being driven by one of the deceased persons had six occupants, including the driver, five males and one female.
The police buried the corpses of the six deceased persons in two shallow graves in the Utako District of the FCT, Abuja, under the supervision of the DPO of Garki Police Station, CSP Othman Abdulsalam.
At the first point of contact between the police and the deceased persons on Gimbiya Street, Area 11, Garki, Abuja, not all the victims were killed there.
No shooting came from the Peugeot 406 car being driven by one of the deceased persons.
The only female occupant of the Peugeot 406, Tina Arebu, was strangled to death by DCP Danjuma Ibrahim and PC Dennis Asawa.
The two locally made pistols, two live cartridges, two expended cartridges, a cutlass, and daggers found in the Peugeot 406 car were planted by officers, according to the Commission’s findings.
The then-and-now pictures of DSP Danjuma, the alleged mastermind of the Apo Six killings.
From the ballistician’s report, the two expended cartridges were never fired from any locally made pistols planted by the DPO of Garki Police Station, CSP Othman Abdusalam, in the Peugeot 406 car.
The two locally made pistols found in the Peugeot 406 car being driven by one of the deceased persons had not been fired in six months prior to the ballistic examination.
That the two locally made pistols found in the Peugeot 406 car were in fact recovered from a hotel in Abuja called Rita Lori Hotel, more than two weeks before the Apo Six killings of June 8, 2005.
That the two locally made pistols, on the request of the DPO of Garki Police Station, CSP Othman Abdusalam, were brought from the armoury of the Garki Police Station by the armourer, Inspector Ishaya Nyaiwak, and given to him, who in turn planted them inside the Peugeot 406 car being driven by one of the six deceased persons.
That the deceased persons were not armed robbers since no gun(s) were found on them, nor did they shoot at the police at the checkpoint on Gimbiya Street, Area 11, Garki, Abuja.
The only escapee from the gruesome killings by the police both at Gimbiya Street, Area 11, Garki, and beside Prince and Princess Estate, Gaduwa, Abuja, was arrested and killed by 7:30am on June 9, 2005, by the Nigeria Police Force.
That the autopsy report showed conclusively that the deceased were killed by high-velocity missiles consistent with bullet shots.
That Inspector Suleiman Audu, the head of the police patrol team at Gimbiya Street, Area 11, Garki, refused to shoot at the Peugeot 406 car.
That the policeman, late PC Anthony Edem, who mysteriously died a day before he was to testify before the Police Administrative Board of Inquiry, was poisoned according to the autopsy report.
On the basis of the incontrovertible evidence adduced before the Judicial Commission of Inquiry, the Commission held that they were not left in doubt about the complicity of the following persons in the unlawful killings of the six deceased persons, namely:
DCP Danjuma Ibrahim – The Plotter
DPO Othman Abdusalam
Inspector Suleiman Audu
Ezekiel Acheneje
PC Sadiq Salami
PC Dennis Asawa
Emmanuel Baba
ASP Nicholas Zachariah
The Commission went on to recommend that they should all be tried in accordance with the appropriate law. The Federal Government accepted these recommendations and issued a White Paper.
The Police Force was instructed to take the necessary disciplinary action against the eight persons, including DCP Danjuma and the DPO of Apo Police Station who supplied the weapon planted in the car of the traders, Othman Abdusalam, and ensure they were all charged with murder.
President Obasanjo tendered an apology to the families of the victims and paid compensation.
Quickly, Number 15 in the list of the recommendations of the Judicial Commission of Inquiry stated that Police Constable Anthony Edem, who was part of the killer squad and had earlier testified against the police, was scheduled to testify again on the following Monday. However, he died on a Sunday night after going out to drink with some of his fellow policemen the previous Saturday. An autopsy report from the National Hospital, Abuja, found that Edem was poisoned to death.
The Nigerian Police Force, after killing six innocent traders simply because the love overtures of one of its philandering officers were turned down, went as far as poisoning one of its own just to cover up the crime.
In a cell right inside the Police Headquarters (Louis Edet House) in Abuja, where DPO Othman Abdusalam was kept pending his day in court, he left his cell one morning purportedly to go and pray and simply disappeared. Till date, that officer, Othman Abdusalam, has never been made to face the law.
Seven years ago, Justice Ishaq Bello of the FCT High Court, Abuja, sentenced two junior policemen to death for the Apo Six killings after they confessed to killing the Apo Six on the orders of DCP Danjuma. However, the same court held that there was insufficient evidence to convict the senior officer, Danjuma, whom the convicted officers, the Police Panel of Inquiry, and the Judicial Commission of Inquiry all identified as the man who plotted, ordered, and supervised the killings.
DCP Danjuma Ibrahim has since been officially reinstated into the Nigeria Police Force through a Police Wireless Message intercepted by Sahara Reporters (as published below).
This officer has been paid all arrears of salaries and other entitlements dating back to 2005 and sent on a refresher course. As I write, Danjuma has been promoted to the rank of Assistant Inspector-General of Police (AIG). Chances are, he may even become the Inspector-General of Police someday.
Meanwhile, according to legal experts, the March 9 judgment of the FCT High Court can still be appealed. However, only the Attorney-General of the Federation can either appeal the ruling or issue an extended fiat to another lawyer to proceed with the appeal. Seven years later, the Attorney-General has done neither.
Twenty-one years on, the Apo6 victims’ search for justice continues.
Will they ever get justice?
