By 247ureports.com
The Anambra State Police Command has described calls for the prosecution of the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) of B Division, Awka, over the confrontation with court bailiffs as premature and unfair until the circumstances of the incident are fully established, and has argued that the conduct of the bailiffs and others at the scene should be examined as well.
The position was set out in a statement issued to journalists in Awka on October 8 by the command’s spokesman, SP Tochukwu Ikenga, and has since been echoed in a longer text circulating on the command’s Facebook page. According to the statement, allegations against police personnel should be investigated properly, but accountability must rest on facts and evidence rather than a one-sided narrative or a video that may not show what led to the confrontation. The command said it does not support misconduct, abuse of power or unprofessional behaviour by its personnel, and said that what happened before the bailiffs began recording should be carefully examined.
The longer text goes further. It asks what kind of bailiffs go to an enforcement without police, alleges that they broke doors at a hotel and threw guests’ belongings outside, says four men jumped from a tinted Sienna bus in a way that looked suspicious given the security situation, and says the police were contacted because the scene had become rowdy. 247ureports.com could not confirm that those specific allegations appear in the command’s official statement as reported, and found no independent evidence for them. The link shared with this report also points to a comment thread on the page, so it is not clear whether the longer text was issued by the command or posted by a commenter.
The command’s earlier account says officers were responding to a distress call about unidentified people and a disturbance at premises in B Division, found individuals evicting persons and removing property, and asked for identification. It says the officers withdrew after the individuals identified themselves as court bailiffs acting on a court order, and that the division had not been approached for security support beforehand. It has begun an assessment of the incident and said the circulating video captures only part of it.
The bailiffs’ side tells a different story. They say they held a valid warrant of possession from the Chief Magistrates’ Court in Awka and showed it to a man who identified himself as the DPO, that he ordered them to stop and follow him to his office, and that his officers later assaulted them. The Nigerian Bar Association’s Anaocha branch and rights lawyer Chidi Odinkalu have condemned the incident, and the Judiciary Staff Union of Nigeria in Anambra has petitioned over what it calls abuse of office, naming the DPO as CSP Stephen Okwundu and demanding a thorough investigation. The police have not responded publicly to the allegations of assault or of an attempt to seize the warrant, and no finding or disciplinary action has been announced.
247ureports.com will update this story when the command’s assessment is concluded.
