The Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria, HURIWA, has called on President Muhammadu Buhari and the National Assembly to adopt effective measures to curb the incessant killings by men of the Nigerian Police Force, NPF.
HURIWA lamented that the Police Service Commission, PSC, can’t curb the incessant killings by police officers because the Commission is headed by a retired Inspector General of Police.
The body stated this in a statement by its National Coordinator, Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and national media affairs Director, Miss Zainab Yusuf, in reaction to the spate of assassinations by police through the misuse of firearms.
According to HURIWA: “Worried by the inability of the Police Service Commission, PSC, to fulfill the mandate of independently investigating widespread police misconduct due to the control of the agency by retired police inspector general, a call has gone to the National Assembly And President Muhammadu Buhari to adopt effective measures to check trends.”
The body stated that the establishment of an, “independent police conduct authority was necessary so as to forestall a break out of popular discontent and mass action against the Nigerian Police Force for the widespread misuse of firearms targeting innocent Nigerians and Nigerians in breach of the law in their lawful custody.”
HURIWA said that it is on record that in the last two decades over 10,000 Nigerians have died from police extrajudicial executions.
The statement reads: “Besides, the police service commission operationally is not independent at all and lacks capacity and skills necessary for determining when police operatives have misused their firearms against civilians making use of forensics and other science-based evidence generating mechanisms which has made it more than necessary for Nigeria to now establish an independent police conduct authority just like what obtains in United Kingdom and New Zealand to be specific.
“We regret that police extrajudicial killings have become a menace which represents a hydra-headed monster that demands that policymakers should think out of the box because adopting the unworkable and decadent approach of relying on an old fashioned governmental and police controlled police service commission to check ballistic misconducts of police operatives is like a mad person who is not mentally alert to know that using unworkable solution to solve an intractable situation is time wasting and insane.”
HURIWA also condemned the media showmanship and dramatization by the acting inspector general of police Alhaji Mohammed Adamu who kept giving out orders that are never meant to be implemented as a way of stopping the illegal and excessive use of ballistic force against citizens by the armed police operatives.
‘’police extra-legal executions are serious crimes against humanity which had even attracted the attention of the United Nations’ special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings who visited Nigeria and compiled extensive statistics of thousands of suspects murders by the police illegally.
“Police orderly room trials are not transparent enough. The court system is way too slow because the police investigators handling investigation of cases of extralegal killings by the police, most times are compromised to mess up the evidence gathering mechanisms and thereby enabling the suspected police killers to escape the long arm of the law. Nigeria needs a panel similar to the independent police conduct authority to handle complaints about the police just like the New Zealand police,” the statement said.
HURIWA recalled that the independent panel of New Zealand is independent and is headed by a judge and don’t answer to the police, the government or anyone else about their findings.”
