By Ishaya Ibrahim, News Editor
Jude Agbanajelu, the pioneer and deceased officer-in-charge of the Special Anti-Robbery Squad (SARS) in Enugu State is no less sinister to Robert Wise 1945 Game of Death’s lead character, a madman who hunts human prey on his conquered island.
The comparison is no hyperbole. Both men enjoyed killings, in fact, it was a sport for them.
In Robert Wise flick, the Madman would take advantage of a shipwreck to prey on his victims, devising novel ways of killing them.
In Enugu SARS, Agbanajelu, known more as Jude SARS, would take advantage of a failed policing system to prey on whoever had the misfortune of being held in his facility. And he had a faithful Lieutenant, one Ugochukwu Ozoude who by some ‘miracle’ moved from the rank of corporal to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) within ten years of his police career. Both men, by several testimonies of Enugu SARS survivors, killed for fun.
Andy (real name concealed to protect him from further harassment) was a survivor of Enugu SARS. Arrested at the behest of a prominent politician in his Akpugo community in Enugu State, he was at the Enugu SARS facility for four months over trumped-up charges of owning stolen buses.
He narrated some of the death game Jude Agbanajelu would engage detainees.
“There was this day four kidnappers were arrested and brought to SARS. Jude Agbanijelu told them that one of them would die that day. He then wrote ‘life’ on three sheets of separate papers, and ‘death’ on one. He folded the papers and asked the guys to pick one each. He then told the person who picked ‘death’ that he would die that night. That very night, about 11:00 pm, they came and called the person, took him to the Theatre (the death chamber) and shot him dead.”
Andy narrated another death game played by Jude Agbanajelu in snuffing out lives from his victims.
“Something happened one day. There was a kidnapping case. Jude Agbanajelu arrested some people. He was torturing them to confess. These people knowing that once they confess, they would die and won’t be taken to court. So, all of them decided not to say anything. Now, somebody had written a petition concerning that case. Then police people from Abuja came to pick up the case. When they came, there is a way they followed the issue. They went to MTN to obtain their call logs. They brought out all the people involved in that case. They ordered SARS people to allow them move around the compound so that their legs would relax. They gave them water to bathe, bought food for them and talked to them in a polite manner. They told them that nobody would torture them again. After the whole thing, without torturing, the boys confessed. Those that confessed were taken to Abuja.
“Now OC SARS (Jude Agbanajelu) got angry that upon all the torture, the kidnappers refused to say the truth. He was angry that because those people came from Abuja, the suspects decided to tell them the truth. He said that he was angry and that before the anger would come down, that he would kill three people. He picked three people and killed them,” Andy narrated.
Andy said SARS under Agbanijelu would summarily execute detainees every night. How was he picking his target? He Explained.
“We hold assembly every morning. In the assembly, when he came out, he would say stand up. He would ask for the IPO (Investigative Police Officer (IPO) of a particular person. When the IPO came out, he would say how far have you gone with the case? When the IPO explained, he would now say ‘I don’t want to see this man when I come here tomorrow.’
“Sometimes, he would say ‘o boy I think to say you go just suffer and die. Since you no wan die, we go kill you.’ At night, those people would be called out and taken to the theatre where they would be shot. They would then call me that I’m one of the people that have muscle. They would pick some other people. We would go to their theatre and carry the dead bodies out to the compound,” he said.
Andy also explained how Jude Agbanajelu’s trusted lieutenant, Ugochukwu Uzoude, a serving policeman in Enugu, would also play his own game of death.
“There was a day we came out for assembly. After the assembly, Ugochukwu called me that we should carry this guy (Ugochukwu Akina) that we should carry the guy to the theatre. The guy could walk. The guy already had bullet wounds. We carried the guy to that place. He told the guy to lie facing down. The guy lay down and faced the ground. He told the guy he wanted to snap his back so that he would carry him to court. So, the guy voluntarily lay down without any handcuffs. He then told me to stand close so that I would see how they kill people. He shot the guy twice at the back. The guy died,” Andy narrated.
A renowned lawyer in Enugu State and a former member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) National Working Committee (NWC) (name withheld), recalled during an interview, the brush he had with operatives of Enugu SARS under the command of Jude Agbanajelu. He said he managed to pull himself out of the trap using his high profile connection with the then President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.
He said of Jude Agbanajelu: “The fear of Jude as at that point in time was the beginning of wisdom. Jude eliminated people to celebrate his happiness. I think he was the first person that started the Enugu SARS during the time of Sulivan Chime (former Enugu State governor) who Sulivan was using against his political enemies. If Jude was happy, he would eliminate some people to celebrate his happiness.”
Agbanajelu has long died of Leukaemia. But his trusted lieutenant, Ugochukwu Ozoude, is agitated because of the #EndSARS protest and has been making entreaties to his former victims.
The former PDP NWC member said he once met Ozoude at the Enugu State CID adorning the rank of a Deputy Superintendent of police. He said he then offered some advice to him. “I told Ugochukwu Uzoude when I saw him at State CID (Enugu) after the atrocities he committed and became a confirmed police officer. I told Ugo you need to be born again. When I learned that he was OC D16, I said Ugo, you must be born again for God to forgive you. You have killed so many people.”
This report, the first in a series, came from a fact-finding mission of the Action Group on Free Civic Space to the South-East on police brutality. The full report is titled #EndSARS: Police Brutality and Shrinking Civic Space, published by Spaces for Change, on behalf of the Action Group.
