The Anambra State Judicial Panel of Inquiry on Police Brutality, Extra Judicial Killings and Other Related Matters, sitting in Awka says it has received not less than one hundred and fourteen petitions.
The Chairman of the Panel, Retired Justice Ngozi Umeh, gave the hint at the commencement of the public hearing.
She disclosed that the panel has struck out one petition for lack of merit and competence as well as containing frivolous allegations.
According to her, the Panel also struck out a petition filed by Mrs. Anwulika Ukaba against the Nigeria army.
Justice Umeh in her ruling posited that the Panel has no powers to deliberate on the matter and that the mandate given to them, did not cover the Nigeria army.
Before the commencement of the proceeding, a member of the Panel, Mr. Chukwuka Osonwa, informed the Panel of the ongoing freezing of accounts of some participants of EndSARS protest and equally their arrests, urging the chairman to write Governor Willie Obiano to ensure that nobody, who participated in the EndSARS protest in Anambra State is harassed or intimidated under any guise.
One of petitioners, Mr. Justine Nwankwo of the Federal Polytechnic Oko, narrated how he, alongside others, were unjustly arrested at the now demolished Upper Class Hotel, Onitsha, and incarcerated for eighty-one days without any charge.
At the end of the proceeding, Retired Justice Umeh thanked members of the Panel for their comportment, and urged them to sustain the tempo.
The hearing was later adjourned to Thursday twelfth November, 2020, that is today, for further hearing.
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