RULAAC calls on IGP to urgently end alleged atrocities at Imo Anti-Kidnapping Unit
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The Executive Director of Rule of Law And Accountability Advocacy Centre (RULAAC), Mr. Okechukwu Nwanguma, has called on the Inspector-General of Police (IGP), Usman Alkali Baba, to intervene and urgently end atrocities going on at the Anti-Kidnapping Unit of Imo State Police Command at the Tiger Base.
Mr. Nwanguma made the call in a RULAAC press release made available to News Band on Friday.
According to Nwanguma, the Imo Anti-Kidnapping Unit is doing every single thing that the disbanded F-SARS was doing that led to the ENDSARS uprising in 2020.
He noted that the current CP Imo State Command, CP Ahmed Barde, does not respond to complaints about the excesses of that “clearly rogue unit” headed by one Supol Ola.
He recalled that last December (2022), RULAAC received information concerning a case of 2 young men who were arrested one evening and taken to the Anti-Kidnapping Unit at Tiger Base, Owerri, and detained without being told what their offenses were.
Narrating the incident furth, Nwanguma said: “Their statements were not obtained until the next day when they were brought out and asked to make statements.
“They stated that they didn’t know what offense they committed that warranted their arrest.
“They further stated that they drove to an ATM stand along Wetheral Road, Owerri, in the evening of the previous day to draw some cash and found themselves rounded up by two armed police officers who were part of a convoy.
“The Officers searched them and their vehicles thoroughly and found nothing incriminating and then ordered them into one of their vehicles and drove them to Tiger Base. Other officers drove in their own car.
“After reading their statements, the officer interrogating them asked them to write that they belong to a cult group but they objected and said they don’t belong to any cult group.
“One of the young men told the Officer that he’s a fresh graduate of law from Imo State university awaiting law school, and the other, his electrician who came and repaired some electrical fault in his house and they both drove to the ATM stand for him to withdraw cash to pay him for the work he did for him.
“The officer insisted and used different objects to brutalise them, including using machetes to flog them at their back, inflicting injuries on them, in order to intimidate and compel them to admit to a crime they did not commit.
“Meanwhile, the officers had seized their phones and never allowed them to contact anyone.
“The law graduate said he was lucky to have sighted a former school mate who turned out to be an officer at the station and he beckoned on him and he came, and he told him his story.
“He then gave him his elder brother’s number and he called and informed his elder brother of his whereabouts and ordeal.
“His elder brother contacted RULAAC and RULAAC called the O/C Anti-Kidnapping, Supol Ola and inquired about the case. Ola said he will check to find out and revert.
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“Hours later, RULAAC called Ola back and he said he checked and found that the two young men were arrested in error. The Officers who arrested them said they suspected their movement and arrested them.”
Nwanguma , therefore, requested that he should release them and he agreed and asked their relatives to come to see him.
Efforts by the young men’s relatives to access the station, however, were frustrated as ‘people are not allowed into the station’, prompting Nwanguma to call and inform Ola, who asked for the detainee’s number and was promptly provided.
In the long run, the young men were released a day after, even after Ola confirmed that they were innocent, not to mention that they deserved an apology for unlawful detention, torture and intimidation.
Instead of an apology, meanwhile, they were forced to pay five hundred thousand Naira (N500,000) before they were released, though they ended up paying less.
The victims said they were later warned never to let anyone know that they paid money with a threat that they will re-arrest them and charge them for kidnapping.
When RULAAC personnel spoke with the young men after their release, they informed that many people they met in the cell are being held incommunicado without the knowledge of their relatives.
While some had spent weeks, others have reportedly spent months with gunshot injuries festering and smelling and in bad state of health and living in starvation.
Worse yet, they are never charged to court.
Nwanguma said that he forwarded this information to Imo State Police Commissioner but he ignored the messages and phone calls.
He, therefore, called on the IGP to intervene to sanitize Imo State Police Command. Read more.
