HURIWA CONDEMNS Imo State Police for operating like terrorists and kidnappers

*Says the police desecrated the Church, the body of CHRIST.

Prominent Civil Rights Advocacy Group-: HUMAN RIGHTS WRITERS ASSOCIATION OF NIGERIA (HURIWA) has condemned the Imo State Police Command for carrying out the so-called arrest of the Son-In-law of Senator Rochas Okorocha inside the Anglican Church premises like armed terrorists or kidnappers just as the Police Service Commission has been tasked to investigate this unprofessional conducts of the operatives of the Imo State police. 

The Rights group said the reckless and ruthlessly lawless mannerisms displayed by the Imo State Police Command in the vicinity of the Church will make it impossible for citizens to separate terrorists from law enforcers because under democracy the operatives of the law enforcement agencies are bound by rules of civility and law-based approach to law enforcement.  

The rights group said the method adopted by the police violates the Nigerian Police Act of 2020, in which several provisions mandate the police to treat citizens with dignity and respect their constitutionally guaranteed fundamental rights, as enshrined in Chapter 4 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of 1999, as amended. 

HURIWA said by this show of criminal brute force the police in Imo State have given life to the widespread allegations in many quarters that operatives of the security services in Imo State and other parts of South East of Nigeria may be responsible for the spate of targeted assassinations and kidnappings that have happened in the very recent time. 

The Rights group is asking the Police Service Commission to wake up from longstanding institutional slumber and near-death and investigate this assault to civility and the crude tactics of the Imo State Police Command. 

HURIWA in a statement by the National Coordinator Comrade Emmanuel Onwubiko and the National director of media Miss Zainab Yusuf stated that the fact that the police shot sporadically inside the vicinity of the Church is an unpardonable desecration of the sanctity of the Church 

The Rights group said the police headed by a Moslem Inspector-General has demonstrated total disregard to the Body of Christ which is an abomination and criminal act because Uche Nwosu is not someone the Imo State Police Command can not quietly invite to their station because he is a well-known politician in Imo State guarded by policemen who goes in and out of the state from time to time and so we wonder why the police should throw their professional codes of conducts to the dogs and behaved like terrorists who were in the Church to kidnap the Worshippers. 

“We condemn this criminal tendency by the Imo State police command and this has given credence to the report documented by Amnesty International in which the global human rights body accused the Imo State Police command of the use of extrajudicial executions of innocent citizens as their law enforcement tactics.” This sort of unprovoked violence and primitive show of force by the Imo State police command is unconstitutional, illegal, despicable, treacherous, and reprehensible.

The commissioner of police must be sanctioned by the Police Service Commission just as the National Council of State should sanction the IGP who authorized this sort of terrorism in a church filled to the brim with peaceful worshippers. This was why everyone in Nigeria believed that the shooters were kidnappers long before the police issued a tepid press statement claiming to have arrested Uche Nwosu.  

HURIWA said the Imo State police through its spokesman CSP Michael Abbatam had belatedly stated thus: “This is to inform the general public that chief Uche Nwosu was not kidnapped but was arrested by the police and Imo state police command is aware of the arrest and presently he is in police custody.  

This is to refute the earlier news that has been making the rounds on social media that he was kidnapped by unknown people/gunmen.

The Commissioner of Police, while using this medium to assure imolites of the command’s commitment in ensuring the safety of life and prosperity during this yuletide season, advised the general public to always shun fake news”. 

But HURIWA said the Imo State Police Command should blame themselves for creating the situation whereby the members of the public panicked and scampered for safety, thinking that the armed hooded men were kidnappers who also shot sporadically, just in the same way and methodology used by terrorists and kidnappers.