Anita Ogona
The family of 23 year old Asher Christopher, a native of AkwaIbom has called for thorough investigation into circumstance surrounding the death of their Son inside Nigeria National Petroleum Company(NNPC) office building located at Moscow road, Porthacourt on Tuesday,20th August, 2024.
Father of the deceased Christopher Dan said he is shocked that uptill now, he has not seen the corpse of his Son.
In an interview with our correspondent,
Mr Christopher Dan said “on Tuesday at about 4:15pm my son called me that the colleague of Asher Christopher called him that he should come to Old GRA Police that the Police need me,so I asked what happened,my son said he dont know.
“When i got there, I asked where is Asher,they searched,they did not see my son’s name on the list at the Police station.I had to ask my Son to call Asher’s colleague again,he now called the person if is old GRA Police station or not.
“The Person said I should come to Surveillance office,upstairs at Old GRA Police station.I waited that Tuesday till 7pm, one of the Policewoman told me to come back on Wednesday.On Wednesday the Police took me and my wife to with other people to the company,NNPC upstream and downstream,at Moscow road.
“So I asked them where did the boy fall from, they said nobody really know if he fell from the 2,3 4,5,6,7 or the last floor.
“I asked them how the boy look like, they said he is with empty body. So I asked them to show me the place, they went to show me the place.I have picture of the place.I looked the place,there is no sign that somebody fell from there, is something somebody will use hard Iron to break the iron pipe, So myself i said they should tell me what happened before he fell.
“I asked of his clothe they said nobody saw the clothe when i got to the first floor i saw the boy’s slippers together with the clothe, I snapped it. I told them I want to see the boy’s corpse to confirm if is my son or not.
“The Police took us back and took us to the mortuary.The Police 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 twenty -four hour, the parents has not seen him. How can they take my son to the mortuary, without consulting the family.
Our correspondent reports that the deceased is a contract staff (cleaner) that does cleaning work in NNPC.
Meanwhile, the National Coordinator of Centre for Basic Rights Protection and Accountability campaign Prince Wiro has called for a thorough investigation in the matter to ascertain what really happened.
Mr Wiro queried while the incident was not reported to Central Police Station(CPS) in charge of the jurisdiction by the company.
Mr Wiro called on the Rivers state Commissioner of Police to wade into the incident by ordering transfer of the case file to State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence Department Port Harcourt saddled with responsibility of investigating culpable homicide .
The Spokesperson for Rivers State Police Command,SP Grace Iringe Koko confirmed the incident, adding that the matter was reported to Old GRA Police Division and investigation is ongoing
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