Christy Akingboye, widow of the late Ondo Social Democratic Party (SDP) governorship candidate, Bamidele Akingboye, has demanded the immediate release of her husband’s autopsy report.
She condemned what she described as wicked, malicious and pre-emptive claims surrounding the circumstances of his death.
The grieving widow told reporters that it was disturbing that neither she nor any of her children had been granted access to the autopsy findings, even though a blogger publicly boasted of having seen and read the report online and alleged it confirmed murder.
She questioned how a private blogger could supposedly access a document that the police themselves had not read to the family.
According to her, the contradictions from the authorities have deepened the family’s suspicion.
She said: “It’s strange that when my children and I had a meeting with the Commissioner of Police last month, he claimed he already had the report with him, yet he did not show it to us.
“Instead, he told us he was washing his hands of the case by returning it to Panti, a division where we had earlier experienced bias and hostility, for onward transmission to the Lagos State Directorate of Public Prosecution.”
She added that what followed was even more shocking: “The same CP went on Channels TV that very day to claim the autopsy confirmed murder. Meanwhile, we, the immediate family, have not seen a single page. Nobody has shown us anything.”
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Mrs Akingboye insisted that an autopsy cannot, on its own, declare a death as murder until proven in court.
“All I am asking for is simple: formally release the report. It is my right as his widow. If a sponsored blogger is reading an acclaimed document supposedly in police custody, shouldn’t the family have access to it too?” she asked.
She stressed that only a court of law can establish murder based on tested evidence, warning that peddling unverified claims was a deliberate attempt to mislead the public and damage her family’s reputation.
The widow lamented the secrecy surrounding the autopsy, which should ordinarily be in the hands of the police or relevant authorities, but which has been kept away from the people most entitled to it.
Mrs Akingboye urged the authorities to come clean, release the autopsy report to her family, and put an end to the speculation, confusion and emotional distress surrounding her husband’s death.
