Date Published: 06/30/09

Kidnapping: HURIWA cautions police

The Human Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, a development focused and democracy inclined civil society group has yesterday cautioned the Nigeria police operatives not to resort to extra legal executions of alleged kidnappers in the country even as it blamed the failure of the intelligence gathering mechanism of the nation’s security agencies for the rise in kidnapping incidents. The Rights Group therefore canvassed the strengthening of the intelligence and criminal investigation capacity of the Nigerian Police.

The Human Rights group in the same vein condemned the recent harassment and physical assault by police operatives in Delta State on six Nigerian Journalists detailed by their organizations to cover a demolition exercise by the State Government land authority. HURIWA called for the immediate probe of the incident and the prosecution of alleged offenders among the police.

In a statement made available to Journalists, and endorsed by its national coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, HURIWA stated that it was worried that the recent instruction given to the police operatives in the South Eastern Nigeria by the police Inspector General Mr. Mike Okiro that ‘stern measures’ be adopted against alleged kidnappers could be misconstrued by the ordinary operatives to mean that they should summarily execute any suspected kidnappers arrested by them.

Specifically, the nation’s retiring police boss Mr. Mike Mbama Okiro had last weekend during a meeting with the police Assistant Inspector General in-charge of South East and the state police Commissioners from Imo, Abia, Enugu, Ebonyi and Anambra States, ordered the policed operatives to adopt stern measures to “stem the rising trend of kidnapping in the South-East geopolitical zone of the country”.

The Force Spokesman Deputy Commissioner of Police Mr. Emmanuel Ojukwu was quoted in media reports on Sunday to have confirmed the strong worded instruction handed down to the operatives by the Inspector General of Police Mike Okiro at a closed door security parley.

Warning that the adoption of summary execution of suspected kidnappers is not the panacea to the unprecedented rise in the incidence of financially induced and motivated kidnapping all over the country and especially in the South East, the rights group affirmed that extrajudicial killings are clear breaches of the fundamental Human Rights’ provisions of chapter four of the 1999 Constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the African Human and People Rights charter.

HURIWA said thus: “our members in Owerri, Aba, Umuahia and Onitsha have alerted us at the head office in Abuja of the growing trend of summary executions of several alleged kidnappers arrested by the law enforcement officers and we want to use this medium to urge for thorough probe by the United Nations Human Rights council. We are doing all we can to sensitize our people in the larger society who have erroneously welcomed the absolutely unacceptable practice of extra legal killings of alleged kidnappers, that as members of a democratic society, it is their constitutional duty to protect the Human Rights of all persons and to become whistle blowers whenever they are aware of incidents of extra judicial executions by the police.”

Citing section 33(1) of the 1999 constitution which provides that “every person has a right to life, and no one SHALL be deprived intentionally of his life,” HURIWA urged the police Inspector General to desist from making ambiguous statement to his operatives which could be taken to mean that extra legal execution of alleged kidnappers is permissible. The Rights group reminded the police that section 36(5) of the constitution recognizes all suspects as innocent in the eye of the law until convicted by the competent court of law.

On the harassment of six Journalists in Delta state, the group which stated that the committee for the protection of Journalists alerted it of the incident, urged the Federal minister of information, Professor Dora Akunyili to convoke a national consultative forum between media workers, security agents and the Federal Government to strategize on modalities for the promotion and protection of the Human Rights of Journalists.

The group called for regular in-house training on Human Rights and the principle of the rule of law to be given to men and officers of all security agencies in the country to check the growing trend of Human Rights violations. The six Journalists had sought to cover the demolition of homes and buildings that were condemned after allegedly being constructed without proper permits on government land in Asaba, Delta state capital. The Journalists brutalized by the police were Obinna Ume from African Independent Television, Daniel Ayemere from MINAJ Broadcasting International, Aderemi Omotosho from Radio Nigeria, Nkem Nweke from Delta Rainbow Television and Alphonsus Agborh from Nigerian Tribune.