Security
…to drag Nigeria Army, Police to UN human rights council:
HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA): a civil rights advocacy group, has concluded arrangements to file official complaint to the United Nations Human Rights Council against the Nigerian Army and the Nigerian police force on the unprecedented scale of lawlessness, official impunity and lack of professionalism which have continued to escalate serial human rights violations against civilians and some disadvantaged class of junior military officers who are simply treated as slaves.
HURIWA further lamented the seeming inertia and lack of political will on the part of the National Human Rights Commission to pit the military and the police on their ties apparently because either that the hierarchy of the National Human Rights Commission are compromised, complicit or are simply unwilling to exercise the enormous powers guaranteed the commission by virtue of the last amendment of the enabling Act empowering the body to enforce respect for human rights by all persons and authorities in Nigeria. HURIWA regretted too that even when the National Human Rights Commission has been granted financial autonomy and gets her allocation directly from the Federation account and not as an envelope from the Federal ministry of justice, the Commission has allowed the Army and the Police to flagrantly violated the human rights of many citizens unchecked.
Besides, HURIWA has asked President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rein in the lawlessness within the Army and the Police to prevent the occurrence of such structural impunity that could threaten national security and destroy constitutional democracy just as the Rights group has called for the immediate arrest of the police officers who invaded the Umuahia, Abia State based public owned television studio during a live programming and arrested an unarmed guest of the programme on the charge that he is wanted over criminal charge. HURIWA said this show of shame isn’t different from a police take over of the broadcast station with intent to institutionalise police impunity and brutality.
The Rights group said if these set of police operatives who displayed crass indiscipline and the most degrading unprofessional conducts are not arrested, prosecuted for such despicable act of perfidy, then one day, the same police may begin arresting television and radio guests on nebulous charges the moment the guests are speaking truth to power or if the state governors or the President is not comfortable with their discussions. “The invasion of a live television programme by the police in Abia shows the rapid nosedive of Nigeria to a state of nature and a banana Republic which must be resisted by all lovers of constitutional democracy.”
HURIWA which had earlier criticised the arrest of Ruth Ogunleye a female junior soldier who recently complained in the social media about her experiences of sexual harassment by her highly placed military officers, said it has compiled several cases of violations of human rights by the Army to be sent to the United Nations even as the group may also file a formal complaint to the International criminal court in The Hague Netherlands.
HURIWA said it was determined to send the petition to the UN Human Rights council because that branch of the United Nations had in 2016 commended publicly the Nigerian Army for the establishment of the human rights desks and the Department for Civil and military Relations but the Rights group lamented that now there is absolutely lawlessness and disregard for human rights by the Nigerian Armed forces which run contrary to the records before the United Nations Human Rights Council which the HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) seeks to correct by updating the United Nations Human Rights Council through an official presentation this week.
In 2016, the United Nations Human Rights Council had praised the Nigerian Army as follows: “The creation of a Human Rights Desk by the Nigerian army, and a review of the forces’ Code of conduct and Rules of Engagement, represent an unprecedented breakthrough. The Nigerian Government has announced the creation of a Human Rights Desk for its national army.
Composed of six legal officers from the Nigerian Bar Association and the legal section of the army, the new body will investigate allegations of human rights abuses perpetrated by national military personnel. The desk will also work to strengthen the army’s capacity to protect human rights and report annually on progress. This decision comes months after the UN Human Rights Council requested the UN Human Rights Office to send a team to investigate and report on the atrocities committed by the Boko Haram insurgent group. The Council also urged the Nigerian military forces to respect human rights during their counter-terrorism operations and to hold perpetrators accountable for abuses.”
HURIWA observed that contrary to the 2016 impressions by the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Nigerian Army together with the Nigeria Police Force, have descended into absolute lawlessness and official impunity even as the office of the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria has virtually no time to monitor and enforce discipline since professionalism and discipline were left to deteriorate miserably.
The Rights group in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, recalled that in an alarming incident on Tuesday in Umuahia, Abia State, some police personnel stormed ABN TV during a live programme, Youth Rendezvous, and arrested a guest, Udensi Donald. The programme was hosted by Grace Onyekachi.
In a statement on Wednesday, the station’s director, Ifeanyi Okali, said police officers entered the studio around 2:40 p.m. and apprehended Mr. Donald, stating that his brother, Uche Udensi, had filed a petition against him over a family dispute.
Despite pleas from station staff to allow the programme to conclude before arresting Mr. Donald, the police insisted on taking him away immediately.
Mr. Okali condemned the action as “provocative,” “overzealous,” and a clear violation of police protocol.
He further stated that upon contacting the Abia State Commissioner of Police, Kenechukwu Onwuemelie, some station staff were invited to the police headquarters. However, upon arrival, they encountered further harassment and intimidation, being denied access to the commissioner.
HURIWA which accused the police of widespread human rights abuses against citizens, said the Nigerian police force has accumulated hundreds of millions of courts awarded damages for serial.cases of egregious human rights violations of the citizens including the use of extrajudicial execution of suspects in the police detention facilities. HURIWA expressed shock that a journalist Sufeiyan Ojeifo was invited and interrogated at the Force headquarters over a story his online medium did on the power struggles in the Code of Conduct Bureau.
“The latest is the information that a Federal High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday, ordered the Inspector-General of Police, IGP, to pay a woman, Mary Kajo, the sum of N100 million over the arrest, unlawful detention, torture and alleged death of her husband, Mark Kajo.
Delivering judgment, Justice Inyang Ekwo, also ordered the police authorities to pay the sum of N500, 000 as the cost of filing the suit. Justice Ekwo directed a five per cent post judgment interest on the fine until the judgment debt is fully settled.
The judge, who observed that the police authorities did not challenge the case of the applicant, said: “The position of the law remains that affidavit evidence which is not challenged or controverted howsoever, is deemed admitted and can be relied upon by a court.” The judge therefore, declared that the killing of late Mark in custody by agents of the police was wrongful, illegal and unconstitutional.
HURIWA listed Anambra nd Rivers States’ police commands as centres of coordinated extrajudicial killings just as it recalled that a civil rights practitioner by name Bonny
Okonkwo through his lawyer, S.I. Okonkwo has filed a fundamental rights enforcement application against the Inspector-General of Police, Kayode Egbetokun and the Commissioner of Police in Anambra State, Aderemi Adeoye at the Federal High Court, Awka Division for illegal detention without trial since January 3, on the instruction of Sir Emeka Offor, demanding N50million damages.
A.
-January 18, 2023 @ 18:13 GMT|
Tags: Aderemi Adeoye Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko HURIWA S.I. Okonkwo Sir Emeka Offor Udensi Donald.
