I want justice, father of dead NNPC worker cries out

The family of 23-year-old Asher Christopher has called for a thorough investigation into the circumstances surrounding his death inside the Nigeria National Petroleum Company office building located along Moscow Road, Port Harcourt.

His father, Dan Christopher, said he is shocked that up until now he had not seen the corpse of his son, who he said is a cleaner and casual worker with the company.

Christopher, while speaking with newsmen in Port Harcourt on Thursday, said his younger son put a call across to him at about 4:15 pm on Tuesday that a colleague of Asher Christopher called him and that he should come to the police station at old GRA because the police needed him.

The father stated, “I asked what happened.  My son said he didn’t know. When I got there, I asked Asher where they searched, they did not see my son’s name on the list at the Police station. I had to ask my son, who called his brother’s (Asher’s) colleague again. He now called the person to know if it was the old GRA Police station.

“The person said I should come to the surveillance office upstairs at the Old GRA Police station. I waited till 7 pm, and one of the policewomen told me to come back on Wednesday.

“On Wednesday, the police told me my son was dead. So they took me and my wife, along with other people, to the company (NNPC) at Moscow Road, where he is working as a cleaner. So I asked where my son fell from.  They said nobody knows if he fell from the second, third, fourth, seventh, or last floor.

“I asked them what the boy looked like. They said he wasn’t wearing a shirt. So I asked them to show me the place. They showed me the place and I took pictures. I looked at the place, there is no sign that somebody fell from there.”

The distraught man said he asked them to tell him what happened before the boy fell.

Christopher added, “I asked for his clothes and they said nobody saw the clothes. When I got to the first floor, I saw the boy’s slippers together with the clothes. My son is a cleaner in this company. I snapped it and told them I wanted to see the boy’s corpse to confirm if it was my son or not.

“The police took us back and took us to the mortuary, but they did not allow me to see my son in the mortuary.

“I want justice. I want to see my son’s corpse. How can somebody die and over 24 hours, his parents have not seen him? How can they take my son to the mortuary without consulting his family?

When contacted, the spokesperson of the state police command, Grace Iringe-Koko, confirmed the incident, saying an investigation into the matter had commenced.

She stated, “Yes, we are aware of the incident. The family reported the matter at the old GRA Police Station. The corpse of the boy has been deposited at the mortuary and an investigation is ongoing to ascertain the circumstances surrounding his death.”

Meanwhile, a rights group, the Centre for Basic Rights Protection and Accountability campaign, has called for a thorough investigation into the matter to ascertain what happened.

The National Coordinator, Prince Wiro, queried why the incident was not reported to the Central Police Station in charge of the jurisdiction by the company.

Wiro called on the State Commissioner of Police to wade into the incident by ordering the transfer of the case file to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department, Port Harcourt, saddled with the responsibility of investigating culpable homicide.

He added, “We have met with the parents of the deceased. We demand a thorough investigation into what led to the death of the young man.

“We are wondering why the matter was reported to a surveillance unit inside old GRA that is suspected not to be under the Rivers State Police Command.

“We use this medium to call on the Rivers State Police Commissioner, Olatunji Disu, to wade into this matter and direct that the case file be transferred to the State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department for thorough investigation.”