Despite all of his efforts to come clean on the shooting and killing of a vendor, Ifeanyichukwu Okereke, the family is demanding a compensation of N500m from House of Representatives Speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila. The vendor died after being shot by a security aide to the Speaker Mr. Abubakar Hassan.
Gbajabiamila also announced on Tuesday, when the Abuja Newspapers Distribution Association (ANDA) visited him the establishment of an Education Trust Fund for the funding of the education of late Okereke’s two children.
But the family appears unimpressed with the Speaker’s gesture and efforts. A letter dated November 23, 2020, signed by the lawyer of the family, Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN) reads in part, \u201cOur clients have instructed us to make from your good self, the following modest demands: That you use your good offices to ensure the immediate prosecution of your security aide (Abdullahi Hassan), who went on a frolic of his own, clearly acted outside the purview of his duty and responsibility by shooting to death an innocent, harmless and armless citizen.
\u201cThat you adequately compensate the Okereke family with a modest sum of N500m only. This monetary demand can never adequately replace or take the place of their son, husband, brother, and breadwinner\u2019s life. But it will at least mitigate the obvious trauma and hardship the premature demise of their irreplaceable breadwinner has placed on them….
\u201cTake note therefore that it is our clients\u2019 firm instruction that in the event that you fail, refuse and\/or neglect to accede to or proffer reasonable compensatory terms to our above modest demands within seven days from the date of this letter, we shall without any further correspondences from us, take appropriate legal steps to enforce our clients\u2019 constitutional rights,\u201d the letter stated
The Abuja Newspaper Distributors Association (ANDA) and Newspaper Vendors Association Abuja (NVAA) last week protested the killing of Okereke.
He left behind a one-week-old baby billed to be named days after his death.
Carrying placards with various inscriptions, \u201cJustice for Elechi,\u201d \u201cVendors lives matter,\u201d \u201cWe need Justice,\u201d \u201cEnd Police Brutality,\u201d They explained why they did not go beyond Area One in the Garki District.
\u201cAs you can see, we are peaceful and we are proceeding carefully because we don\u2019t want our protest to be hijacked by other elements for lootings and destructions. All we are demanding for is Justice for Elechi,\u201d Says Comrade Benji Ebute, President of the ANDA.
\u201cThe victim was supposed to be having naming ceremony this week but recklessness on the side of the errant security details has cost his life. Femi knows this very victim one on one, so when they came to hail him usual, he gave his orderly N9,000.00 to give to the vendors which Ifeanyi collected but the officer shot him at close range and released another shot in the air.\u201d
Gbajabiamila, announced when the killing occured that he was \u201cpersonally distraught\u201d
The speaker explained that the incident occurred when he stopped his convoy to exchange pleasantries with the vendors as was his usual practice after work.
\u201cUnfortunately, after the convoy set out in continuation of our movement, unidentified men obstructed the convoy which got the attention of security men in the convoy who shot into the air to disperse them.
\u201cSome hours later, after getting to our destination, it was brought to my attention that someone was hit by a stray bullet, contrary to an earlier report by men in the convoy that they applied their security discretion to shoot in the air.
\u201cMy value for human life and my respect for all people, irrespective of social-economic status, is what endeared me to these vendors and these are the reasons why I stop my convoy quite often to connect with them.
\u201cFor one of them to have been shot by my security detail is horrific and I cannot begin to imagine the grief and loss Ifeanyi\u2019s family must feel on this sad day. No family should have to go through this.
Meanwhile, the DSS has issued a statement acknowledging the shooting and opened investigation, while grounding its man.
It said in a statement: “The attention of the Department of State Services (DSS) has been drawn to the allegation of shooting and killing of one Ifeanyi Okereke by a security aide of the Speaker of the House of Representatives.
“The Service hereby confirms that the suspect is one of its personnel deployed to the Speaker\u2019s Convoy as a security detail. And as already stated by the Speaker that he has been suspended from his Convoy, the Service has further withdrawn him from the assignment.
“As part of its disciplinary procedures in the instance, he has been taken into detention. In addition, the Service has opened a detailed investigation into the matter. While it pledges to be transparent and accountable in handling this, it is liaising with appropriate authorities to achieve this objective.
“The Service condoles with the family of the deceased and his loved ones. It has promised a thorough investigation into the circumstances that led to the unfortunate incident and will surely keep to this.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite all of his efforts to come clean on the shooting and killing of a vendor, Ifeanyichukwu Okereke, the family is demanding a compensation of N500m from House of Representatives Speaker, Mr. Femi Gbajabiamila. The vendor died after being shot by a security aide to the Speaker Mr. Abubakar Hassan. Gbajabiamila also announced on Tuesday, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":22476,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[114,2592,2593],"class_list":["post-30012","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-gbajabiamila","tag-n500m","tag-vendor"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30012","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30012"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30012\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30012"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30012"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/everyday.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30012"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}