Protest against SARS: “My dad is not a good policeman, but they kill me during the protest”

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“My husband followed my team to work that day and in the evening the team called me and said they were rushing to the hospital. When I got to the hospital, the doctors wouldn’t let me come in that evening. They gather around me and tell me they are giving me a treat. I can hear myself crying because it hurts.

In the morning at the hospital they say that they want to do one test in the morning, they say let him bring the money, I rush home to get the money, and when I return, they say that he will not die.

Mrs Ifeoma Dorathy Ugwu died when her policeman husband died during the nationwide anti-SARS protest in October 2020, when she narrated how her husband died in a counter-counter to commemorate the fourth anniversary of these deadly nationwide protests.

She told BBC Pidgin how her husband, Inspector Maurice Ugwu, died on duty in Lagos in southwest Nigeria and left in the morning with their four children.

She says she has been a stay-at-home mom since her husband married her in 1998, and she won’t get any work if the officer dies. Now she struggles to feed and care for her four children.

Her husband was killed on October 22 in an attack by unknown pipo, two days after a deadly protest at Lekki tollgate where soldiers opened fire on protesters.

That same year, Mohammed Adamu police reported that 22 police officers lost their lives during the protests as hoodlums attacked security personnel, especially the police.

Hooligans also burned or destroyed 205 police stations during the protest.

The protests also resulted in the deaths of many civilians and soldiers. Looting and destruction of properties worth billions of naira followed oda banks that occurred during the protest.

Amnesty International reports that about 56 people died during the protest, 12 of whom died at Lekki Tollgate, and many people gathered for the protest before soldiers opened fire on them.

Her husband was just one of many police officers killed during the anti-SARS protest.

Many Nigerians, especially youth, are taking to the streets across the country to protest against police brutality and killings. They demand the creation of a special police unit and the creation of SARS.

The protest will begin on October 8, 2020 and the bin dei waka will be small, small until Kasala explodes and the protest turns violent.

Today marks the fourth anniversary of the protest.

Madam Ugwu told BBC Pidgin how her husband, Inspector Maurice Ugwu, died on duty in Lagos in southwest Nigeria and left in the morning with their four children.

She says she has been a stay-at-home mom since her husband married her in 1998, and she won’t get any work if the officer dies. Now she has to struggle to feed and care for her four pikins.

Madam Ugwu’s life will never be the same after the death of her husband. She says she finds it difficult to care for her four children while her husband goes home.

Her husband works at Iponri Police Station in Lagos while my family and I stay at Iponri Police Barracks.

During an anti-SARS protest, fellow officers found her husband under a bridge and rushed to the hospital before they informed her on October 22, 2024, she said. Her husband died the next day.

The mother of four children became a widow. She says, “God help me after her husband died.”

A few months later, they went to bury their dad, who would be the breadwinner at home.

When we ask her how she feels when she goes to bury her own husband, her voice changes, she begins to cry and says: “This is a difficult time for me, because when I die, I will not do anything, after my funeral and first period of mourning.” Reverend Sister, give me the work I am doing now.”

She confirms that the police pay her husband’s insurance and co-op money, but she has never received pension money until now.

She says: “We don’t often apply for pension money, but it demands a lot from us. If we provide one, ask for another.”

According to her, these demands are aimed at forcing the Police Pension Board to never release pension money, claiming that she knows of some other deceased family that is not collecting pension money.

Her first daughter, Amarachukwu Ugwu, is studying at a tertiary institution in Enugu in southeastern Nigeria, BBC Pidgin reports that her family is not affected by the protests.

“Now I am finding it difficult to pay school rent, school fees matter every day to feed the wahala and I am not in a position to worry my mom about eurythin as I am becoming a junior which she is also taking care of,” so Amarachukwu current .

She recently said that police authorities had given orders to force them to pack up the belongings from the police barracks where her family remained, saying they wanted to repair them today.

She says, “Some pipo isn’t packing his things from the barracks, but we don’t know where we need to go, we’re still here.”

She added: “My dad is a good man, kind, strict and generous. I like that I do a good job.”

A document being shown by the Nigerian Police to BBC Pidgin lists the names of seven fallen police officers killed during the Anti-SARS protest, including the name of the late Inspector Paul Maurice Ugwu.

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu gave the families of the six policemen who would die N10 million each and promised university level scholarships to the children to console them, but the family of Inspector Paul Ugwu did not think about the names of those the governors received. present.

Ms. Ugwu now works as a secretary at a Catholic church and they manage to use their salary to take care of their children.

“I am calling the Inspector General of Police to help the widows of deceased police officers, we are suffering too much, make me help us start something so that we can stand on our own,” she said.

Speaking about the protests in Nigeria, she advised: “I am not advocating for any person to ever join any form of protest again, for the sake of this protest, don’t show me this for the rest of my life.”

During the last three anniversaries of the End SARS protest, people have taken to the streets and held peaceful protests across Nigeria in memory of the people who died or were injured during the protest.

It will never be clear that today they will go to the anode protest. However, while I was writing this report from Saturday evening to Sunday morning, many people had already started tweeting “End SARS” on social media in memory of the protest.

The question is, as they still say, will the protests achieve the goal of ending police brutality in the contri, or if they die, both Inspector Ugwu and his colleagues and other civilians will think that the death will have been in vain.