Controversies are trailing death of 23-year-old man, Asher Christopher, inside a Nigeria National Petroleum Company(NNPC) office building located at Moscow road, Port Harcourt, Rivers State.
However, members of family the deceased said to be from Akwa Ibom state have called for thorough investigation into circumstance surrounding his death on Tuesday, 20th August, 2024.
Father of the deceased, Christopher Dan, said he is shocked that he was yet to see the corpse of his son.
He lamented that “On Tuesday, at about 4:15 pm, one of my sons called me that a colleague of Asher Christopher called him that he should come to Old GRA Police Station that the Police needed to see him. He tried know what happened but did not get an answer.
He said when he got there, he asked the whereabouts of Asher, they searched and did not see his name on the list at the Police station. At that point, he had to ask his son to call Asher’s colleague again to find out if he is in the old GRA Police station or not.
“The Person who answered said I should come to Surveillance office, upstairs at Old GRA Police station. I waited that Tuesday till 7pm, one of the Policewomen told me to come back on Wednesday. On Wednesday the Police took me, my wife to with other people to the company, NNPC upstream and down stream at Moscow road. They said one boy fell and died.
“So I asked them where did the boy from fell from? They said nobody really know if he fell from the 2,3 4,5,6,7 or the last floor.
“I asked them how the boy looked like, they said he is with empty body. So I asked them to show me the place, they went to show me the place. I have picture of the place. I looked at the place, there was no sign that somebody fell from there. So I said they should tell me what happened before he fell.
“I asked of his clothes they said nobody saw the clothes. When I got to the first floor i saw the boy’s slippers together with the clothes, I snapped it. I told them I want to see the boy’s corpse to confirm if he was my son or not.
He stated further that the Police took them to the mortuary, but he was not allowed to see his son’s corpse in the mortuary.
“I want Justice. I want to see my son’s corpse. How can somebody die and over twenty-four hours, the parents were not able to see him? How can they take my son to the mortuary without consulting family?”.
It was later gathered that the deceased is a contract staff(cleaner) with NNPC.
Meanwhile, the National Coordinator of Centre for Basic Rights Protection and Accountability campaign, Prince Wiro, has called for a thorough investigation in the matter to ascertain what really happened.
Mr Wiro queried why the incident was not reported to Central Police Station(CPS) in charge of the jurisdiction by the company.
He called on the Rivers state Commissioner of Police to wade into the incident by ordering transfer of the case file to State Criminal Investigation and Intelligence, Department, SCIID, Port Harcourt which is saddled with the responsibility of investigating culpable homicide .
The Spokesperson for Rivers State Police Command, SP Grace Iringe-Koko Koko confirmed the incident .
The NNPC was yet to respond to message sent to inquiries at the time of filing this report.
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