By Uthman Baba-Naseer,Minna<\/p>\n
The head of detention facility of the Niger State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), ASC Usman Isah Ndamaka openly broke into tears while testifying before the ongoing Justice Mohammed Mohammed Judicial Commission of Inquiry in Minna stating that lack of enough personnel and the fear being overpowered by the late miners prevented him from opening their detention cell.<\/p>\n
His testimony is coming as personnel of the Corp who were arrested on the order of the Commandant General of the Corp CG Ahmed Abubakar Audi in connection with the death of the 37 persons in the custody of the NSCDC,continued to testify before the Commission of Inquiry to investigate the unfortunate tragedy of the 17th September,2026 at the NSCDC custody.<\/p>\n
He stated that a total of fifty eight suspects were brought to the Command comprising of twenty five female and thirty thirty three male.<\/p>\n
He told the Commission that the detention facility is to accommodate between twenty eight to thirty suspects \u201cbut we separated female to the other facility\u201d<\/p>\n
Twenty two of the personnel including the state suspended Commandant of the Corp Siayaka Zubeiru Aniriviye were ordered to be arrested by CG Ahmed Abubakar Audi and taken to the Corp\u2019s headquarters in Abuja.<\/p>\n
So far, eight of the personnel have testified before the Commission of Inquiry within the commencement of the sitting of the Commission.<\/p>\n
SC Isah Ndamaka who could not control his tears while testifying admitted that he took responsibility of the unfortunate incident and tendered his apology to the bereaved parents and the people of the State for the death of the Miners in the custody where he was heading as officer in-charge of the detention facility.<\/p>\n
\u201c An error is already committed. I’m very sorry Sir,for the death of the miners under my custody. It is unfortunate that this happened under my watch. <\/p>\n
\u201cI’m pained and it is very unfortunate it happened,I’m very sorry I
\nadmitted my mistake\u201d Isah Ndamaka told the Commission in an emotional laden tune<\/p>\n
He maintained that the fear of being overpowered by detainees prevented him from opening the cell door despite hearing their screaming and shouting while in the cell as a result of their overcrowding and heat in their cell.<\/p>\n
Ndamaka apologised to the bereaved families and the Niger State Government over his actions, describing them as a grave mistake.<\/p>\n
According to him, the detainees arrived late in the evening amid a heavy downpour, while the need to separate the male and female suspects made it difficult to accommodate them in the available cells as efforts to transfer some of them to old command failed as they were rejected by the mining Marshal.<\/p>\n
Head of Investigation unit Chief Superintendent of Corps Sunday Oluwadere also told the Commission that on the arrest of the late miners,he profiled and investigated them and seizure of some exhibits was made.<\/p>\n
Responding to a question from the Niger State head of the Nigeria Legal Aid Council (NLAC),Mrs Bolanle Jibogun Esq, CSC Dare Sunday admitted that he was very sorry for his shortcomings<\/p>\n
Earlier Chief Consultant Pathologist at the General Hospital, Minna, Doctor Alfa Sule, told the Commission that he informed security personnel of the need to conduct post-mortem examinations on the bodies of the deceased to establish the cause of their death.<\/p>\n
He added that conducting the post-mortem examinations required the approval of a coroner, and the deceased family consent for samples to be taken for toxicology and histology for forensic laboratory reference in Lagos.<\/p>\n
The outcome of the postmortem examination is expected after the forensic laboratory reference which is said to be available in two weeks.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
By Uthman Baba-Naseer,Minna The head of detention facility of the Niger State Command of the Nigeria Security and Civil Defence Corps (NSCDC), ASC Usman Isah Ndamaka openly broke into tears while testifying before the ongoing Justice Mohammed Mohammed Judicial Commission of Inquiry in Minna stating that lack of enough personnel and the fear being overpowered […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17687,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18889","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-law-crime"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18889","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18889"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18889\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18890,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18889\/revisions\/18890"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18889"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18889"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyechoes.ng\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18889"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}