AN OPEN LETTER TO BENUE STATE GOVERNOR, DR. SAMUEL ORTOM ON THE NEED TO ENGAGE THE KADUNA STATE GOVERNMENT AND THE KADUNA STATE COMMISSIONER OF POLICE OVER THE GRUESOME MURDER OF AN INDIGENE OF BENUE STATE, BENJAMIN WANKAA DEDE.

Good Day Your Excellency,
I write this open letter to you as a formal complaint and petition
against the conduct of the Kaduna State Command of the Nigerian Police
under whose custody, a Benue Student of the Department of Mineral
Resources, Kaduna Polytechnic, Mr. Benjamin Dede Wankaa aka Cedar was
murdered and to urge you to ensure that the perpetrators of this act
are brought under the weight of the law. This is because, there is a
systematic plot to sweep the case under the carpet, hence it involves
police officers and if superior urgent concern from an end such as
yours is not shown, the case may become one of too many quietly
rested.

To brief you about what happened which was even communicated widely on
the social media. On the 25th of June, 2017 while Mr. Wankaa,
hereafter referred to as the victim was on his way back from a night
party in company of friends and relatives, where the victim anchored
the event, hence he is a professional MC/Comedian; what he does at his
leisure time to support the financial needs of his education, they
were stopped by police officers of the Sabon Gari Police station who
were on night duty and on getting to the check point, after
interrogation, his relatives were taken to the police station while he
was left at the check point with the police.

That was the last time his friends and relatives heard of him as the
following day, these police officers reported that, Benjamin had
escaped from their custody and later broke the news of his death
claiming that, his body was found along the high way with parts of his
body broken and others mutilated especially his limbs, which was an
incontestible indication of torture or brutality.

Information was also reliably gotten that, the father to his relatives
who had come to bail them out was made to sign an undertaken for
closure of the case as a condition for releasing his children.
Equally, his family members who also approached the police station to
claim his body were made to sign to the effects that, his body would
not be further investigated as the police had already done so. All
this in an attempt to cover the reality of the true cause of his
death. The corpse has been deposited at the mortuary without
examination as ordered by the police.

With these glaring facts surrounding the mystified circumstances of
his death, it s obvious that, the police officers have a hand in it
and are desperately trying to shield the truth from being told. It is
lamentable that, at the instance of those who are saddled with the
protection of lives and property, lives are rather being lost in a
despicable manner unworthy of uniformed men.

I therefore wish, that you use your good office as the father of Benue
people home and in the diaspora to give special attention to this case
with the view of bringing the perpetrators to justice as the only way
to sooth the feelings of family members of the victim as well as a
deterrent measure to check the excesses of careless uniformed men who
are abusing their professions.

I enjoin you sir, to communicate your counterpart, the Kaduna State
Governor and his Attorney General, as well as the Kaduna State
Commissioner of Police about your special interest in the case, hence
it concerns an indigene of your state where you are a caring father.
The public outcry about his murder should not be waved with the back
of the hand.
May these words find favour in your ears, even as Benue people are
confident you'd act in this regard.

Sincerely yours,
Ukan Kurugh