On July 8th, I reported about a woman - Mrs. Ebire Ejor (nee Amungo), the wife of a PDP chieftain in Rivers state, Chief Ngowah Ejor, who was murdered by unknown gunmen in Port Harcourt. Read here. Above is the woman who was unfortunately killed. After the cut, you will find a petition by Amungo family on her suspicious death. Rea it after the cut...
The Amungo Family of
Adubabiri compound of Southern Ijaw local government of Bayelsa State have
called on the Inspector-General of Police, Mr. Solomon Arase to appoint a
seasoned police officer to investigate the suspicious death of Mrs. Ebiegberi
Ejor (nee Amungo). In a petition signed on behalf of the family by Dr. Ebimo
Amungo, and delivered to the Force Headquarters in Abuja, the family said they
have lost faith in the ability of the policemen of the Rivers State Police Command
to find the true and probable cause of the death of Mrs. Ejor, who, the family
believes, was murdered with her business partner.
In the revealing
petition, the Amungo family gave full details of how Mrs. Ejor, the proprietor
of Ebilabelle Fashion House and Big Sky School, was found dead by the police in
a hotel room with her business partner. This is contrary to news that had been
released to the public that she was abducted by kidnappers and murdered by
political opponents of her husband.
The Amungo family disclosed
in their petition that on the 6th of July, 2015 the manager of
Ugalink Hotel, situated in 9/11 Odumini Lane, Road 24 Extension A, Agip Estate,
Port Harcourt, Rivers State, reported to the Ada George Road Police Division,
the discovery of two dead persons in one of the rooms of the hotel. Checks at
the Corporate Affairs Commission in Abuja revealed that the hotel is owned by
Rt. Hon. I. Ibani, the current Speaker of the Rivers State House of Assembly.
It was
further disclosed that a police team sent from the division identified the dead
persons as Mrs. Ebiegberi Ejor (nee Amungo); a 41 year old mother of four
children married a prominent business man in Rivers State and former Eleme
Local government chairman, Chief Ejor Ngowa Ejor. The deceased male was
identified as Mr. Freedom Rondue Harrison, a Nigerian-born, France-based, known
business associate of Mrs. Ejor’s. They were both found naked on the floor in
the position of an embrace with the shower in-between their bodies at the
entrance of the shower cubicle.
The policemen at the
scene took pictures of deceased, their clothing and other evidence in the hotel
room. The recently appointed Commissioner of Police of the Rivers State Police
Command, Mr. Chris Ezike, the petition added, went personally to Chief Ejor’s residence
inform him of his wife’s death on the evening of 6th of July. Two persons were sent to the hotel room to confirm
the identity the deceased. One was a close aide of the deceased’s husband, Mr.
Tonye Cookey-Gam, and the other was Mrs. Ejor’s mother. Thereafter, the
policemen evacuated the corpses to the morgue at the University of Port
Harcourt Teaching Hospital (UPTH) and both bodies were embalmed.
On
Tuesday, 7th July, 2015, the commissioner of police secured a
magistrate’s order for an autopsy to be conducted on Mrs. Ejor and on
Wednesday, July 8th, the autopsy was conducted at UPTH by one Dr.
Obiorah and was witnessed by Mr. Cookey-Gam, for the deceased’s husband her younger brother of the deceased, who
represented the Amungo Family. The report of the autopsy concluded that the
Mrs. Ejor died by electrocution.
The
Amungo family posited that from what they had gathered so far, the initial
conclusions of the police officers investigating the case was that both
deceased were electrocuted while having a bath together in the hotel shower
cubicle. The family rejected that theory of the police. Rather, they contend
that both Mrs. Ejor and Mr. Harrison were murdered and their bodies planted in
the hotel room in a manner to create the impression that they were electrocuted
while having a bath. The family told the Inspector General that “ the theory of
electrocution while having a bath is spurious and hard to believe, especially
with evidence at the scene, and crucially, evidence on the photographs supplied
by the police.”
The family accused the policemen investigating
the case of showing “gross negligence and incompetence” for a
number of reasons which they listed to include; the fact that the whole basis
of the police investigation so far is
directed towards only one conclusion-which is that both deceased were
electrocuted while having a bath in the
shower. The family also accused the investigating police officers of directing
the pathologist who conducted the autopsy on Mrs. Ejor towards the same
conclusion despite clear signs of torture on the body of the deceased. The
family argued that there were lots of inconsistencies in the pictures provided
by the police of the deceased at the scene where she was discovered.
Furthermore,
the family accused the policemen investigating the case of not securing the
hotel room in which the deceased were found for further investigation, as the
room was open for anyone to enter the very next day after both corpses were evacuated
from it. The family called investigating police officers “incompetence” for returning crucial items that could hold
several clues about Mrs. Ejor’s death to the deceased’s husband on the same day
her corpse was discovered in the hotel. The items included the deceased’s car,
her phone and cloths. The Amungo family also complained that the investigating police officers did not investigate the
deceased’s phone calls for evidence of her whereabouts at various times using
simple location pointers available at the telecoms providers.
There
was a shocking revelation in the petition that the new Commissioner of Police
of the Rivers State Police Command, Mr. Chris Ezike, who is a close friend of
the deceased’s husband, was hosted by the deceased and her husband to lunch in
their family house in GRA Port Harcourt on the day of her disappearance and
eventual death. The Amungo family, thus, asserted that the police
commissioner’s closeness to the deceased’s family might affect his professional
judgment and interest regarding the investigation of the circumstance that led
to her death.
Finally,
the Amungo Family prayed that the Inspector-General of Police should appoint a
seasoned police officer from outside the Rivers State Police Command to
investigate the death of Mrs. Ejor and Mr. Harrison. They also requested that a
second autopsy to be conducted on the deceased. Their third prayer is that the
IGP directs that that the police investigates the deaths of Mrs. Ejor and Mr. Harrison
as murders and apprehend those responsible for their deaths.
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