Attack on Ohakim underscores need for regional-based solutions — HURIWA
HURIWA calls for independence of NPF, PSC over extrajudicial killings, wants Police Commission set up in all states
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Front line civil rights advocacy group – Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) has condemned the vicious attack on the convoy of the former governor of Imo State Mr. Ikedi Ohakim just as the rights group challenged governors and leading political leaders in the South East region of Nigeria to explore a regional wide solution to the insecurity in the once peaceful Igboland.
HURIWA said the suggestions by both governor Hope Uzodimma and Charles Chukwuma Soludo of Imo and Anambra blaming either political opponents or voodoo worshippers and cultists are untrue just as the Rights group said both the police and the Army have yet to obtain high valued intelligence on the identity of those sponsoring the staccato violent campaigns of terror in all of Igboland and thus now is the time for Governors and lgbo patriots to explore innovative solutions to these problems and crises.
HURIWA recalled that the one-term former governor was attacked by gunmen at Ehime Mbano Local Government Area of Imo State, with four people in his entourage feared killed just as the former chief executive of Imo State narrated his near-death ordeal and said his bulletproof vehicle and his driver who brought to bear his skills saved him and his children from the killer gunmen.
HURIWA which quoted a media interview granted by Ikedi Ohakim shortly after the assassination attempt stated as follows: “We were driving between Isiala Mbano and Ehime Mbano. These people blocked us at a place called Umualumaku.
They attacked us from behind and were firing at our vehicles consistently. I thought I was a dead man and I was with two of my children – my son and daughter.
What saved me was the bulletproof vehicle. That I am alive today is by the special grace of God and the bulletproof vehicle. But unfortunately for me they killed four of our boys, including the driver. Yes, we lost four of the boys and I am devastated. How can that be? What crime did they commit?”
HURIWA disclosed that former governor Ohakim told The NICHE during a telephone interview on Monday night thus: “They pursued us and continued firing at our tyres. Luckily, the vehicle has what is called run-flat tyres on which you can continue driving even after a puncture. So, even when they shot at the tyres hoping to immobilise us, the vehicle continued moving.
“If they were ordinary tyres and the vehicle had stopped, they would have cornered and finished us. But the tyres held on until we got back home. We drove for about 20 minutes before we got home. That was the saving grace. The driver who manifested tremendous level of driving skill kept manoeuvring until he lost them at a junction when he went right and not knowing where we had gone, they headed the other direction on the road to Umuahia.
“We then turned and went back to my house. We were there when Imo Government House sent reinforcement from Owerri who brought the corpses of my security people.”
HURIWA which condemned the gruesome murder of some of the aides of the former governor said that it is sad and disappointing that the governors and political leaders from the Igbo speaking States have seriously not decided to work on a broad-based and regional wide solutions which is the reason the killings have widened and the rights group warned the government officials of Igbo extraction that if they fail to find a workable solutions to the mass killings then they should be prepared for a much more vicious war because it is apparent that whomsoever the gunmen are will turn their deadly weapons on the political elites as they have even started doing with the recent attacks on Senator Ifeanyi Ubah and Mr. Ikedi Ohakim.
HURIWA through the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko appealed to Governors, National, state legislators, civil, religious and cultural leaders of the South East to synergise realistically and come up with practicable responses to the challenges of insecurity and blood cuddling killings going on in the South East of Nigeria.
It said the governors should advocate effective non-kinetic strategy by the armed forces of Nigeria since the hit-and-run shooting of suspected insurgents by the operatives of the armed forces of Nigeria and the burning of villages by the Army and police including Ebubeagu operatives haven’t led to an end to the attacks by the unidentified gunmen. “The fact that the Army and police don’t know exactly who the sponsors of the attacks are shows a classical failure of intelligence which is worrisome.”
HURIWA said: “We think the governors of the South East should be altruistic for once and work in unison for the sake of the continuation of the Igbo race because these attacks happening in the South East of Nigeria are well coordinated, well-choreographed and well-funded and as Ikedi Ohakim who saw the gunmen face to face testified that the killers are beyond IPOB, it behooves on the Igbo leaders to get to work and invest substantially in hiring well-groomed private investigators and thoroughbred members of the intelligence community to get to the roots of these killings.
HURIWA further stated that: “The guesswork by the Nigeria Police Force and the Nigeria Army which constantly without any atom of proofs, often blame the Indigenous People of Biafra for these killings has for long been exposed as half-baked lies contrived to call a dog a bad name just to hang it. These continuous bombardments go to demonstrate the urgency of the now for a comprehensive and durable solution to the violence and terrorism against the good people of Igboland.”
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HURIWA calls for independence of NPF, PSC over extrajudicial killings, wants Police Commission set up in all states
Civil rights advocacy group, Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, (HURIWA) on Tuesday, called on the Federal Government to allow the independence of the Police Service Commission and the Nigeria Police Force so that they can effectively carry out their constitutional mandates.
HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko, in a statement also sought that the offices of the police service commission be set up in all the 36 states of the Federation and the Federal Capital Territory for the purposes of investigating the legality or otherwise of use of weapons by policemen against citizens.
The group’s statement followed the extrajudicial killing of a Lagos-based lawyer, Bolanle Raheem by ASP Drambi Vandhi on Christmas Day and similar killing of another Lagosian, Gafaru Buraimoh by policemen attached to the notorious Ajiwe Police Station on December 7, 2022 and hundreds of other cases that never made it to the popular news media.
HURIWA’s Onwubiko said, “The Federal Government needs to strengthen the Police Service Commission, build up the effective and efficient manpower to power the commission’s mandates which if adequately implemented and enforced by the right kind of science-based, evidence-driven investigations of policing misbehaviour and crimes such as extrajudicial killings of civilans, then the cases of police brutality will be checked and perpetrators punished severely in line with the extant laws on murder.
“In the wake of the extra legal killing of the Lagos pregnant lawyer on Christmas day, virtually everyone has spoken out in condemnation but structurally, both the Nigeria Police Force and the Police Service Commission are compromised and not independent in terms of implementation of their mandates and the police is so indiscipline to a point that 70% of the operatives are unaware of the existence of the Nigerian Police Act of 2020 which contains a plethora of provisions that specify human rights of citizens in their encounter with the police.
“The government needs to take a bolder step to set up offices of Police Service Commission in all the states and set up functional ballistic laboratory for the purposes of investigating the legality or otherwise of police use of weapons against citizens including even outlaws and criminals as is done in the UK which has even an entirely independent body of investigators that analyzes the use to which police operatives have put their weapons in the course of their functions of law enforcement.
“Nigeria needs state police that is not controlled by the state governors but by an entirely independent body of governors composed of statesmen and women selected from the 36 states of the Federation and to work closely with the national policing institution that will be in charge of investigating bigger crimes in all parts of Nigeria as is applicable in the USA with FBI and the state Police but the National Assembly having Oversight responsibility.
“The #EndSARS panels succeeded minimally by way of recommending compensation in monetary terms but there are dozens of killers in police uniforms that are still working till date. The country needs to bring about sanity in the affairs of the policing institution to bring about the stamping out of the use of extra judicial killings by the police.” Read more.
