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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