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Nigerians are
daily inundated with media drama by the security operatives of a
variety of high profile arrests of suspects allegedly involved in a
number of offences ranging from terrorism which is a present and
potentially destabilizing danger to the existence of Nigeria to other
serious cases such as crude oil theft and diversion and/or theft of
subsidy fund by members of the seemingly untouchable crude oil cabals
that are closely linked with high profile Government officials at the
Federal level.
The Nigeria
Police Force [NPF] are also known to have announced and celebrated in
the local media, several high profile arrests of alleged Kidnapping
kingpins but none of these alleged kidnappers has been convicted for
this serious crime against humanity.
What makes
these intermittent 'breakthroughs' by the security agents that are
flamboyantly celebrated in the Nigerian media is that these
announcements and the attendant sensational news coverage are just
the only thing Nigerian public would be privileged to know because
often, these same high profile suspects already paraded in the media
by the security operatives are never really charged before the
competent courts of law and if they are even brought to these courts
and further disgraced in the media, the suspects end up walking out
freely from the court rooms because either the security operatives
are ill-prepared with quality proof of evidence to nail these
suspects or the prosecution may have compromised with these high
profile suspects to undermine the determination of these cases before
the courts and the larger public are the worst for it because public
fund allegedly stolen are never recovered fully and these alleged
offenders are left to walk right back into public reckoning as
members of the untouchable political and economic cabals.
September 14th
2012 therefore came just like any other politically charged day in
Nigeria when the security operatives attached to a private security
firm in Lagos linked to a former militant from the Niger Delta the
birth place of President Jonathan announced that it has caught a 'big
fish' in the person of the former Minister of Interior Captain
Emmanuel Ihenacho for alleged conspiracy in the case of alleged
storage by his farm tank of allegedly stolen crude oil, most
discerning Nigerians took the sensational media story with a pinch of
salt and most people murmured that Government has started with
another phase of 'Government magic'.
The former
interior minister was quoted in the media few weeks before his
so-called arrest that the reported award to a private security firm
linked to one of the former leaders of the then armed militants in
the Niger Delta was wrong since the Nigerian Navy is the statutory
arm of the Nigerian Security forces charged with the duty of
safeguarding Nigeria's water ways.
President
Jonathan is known to have publicly complaint that he is the most
criticized President in the World and his body language in recent
times shows him as a political leader that is now prepared to deal
decisively with his so-called critics.
Many other
people including this writer also criticized the award of security
contract to this private security firm belonging to the ex-militant
as the height of nepotism and therefore illegal and unconstitutional.
But he
Presidency has defended the security contract handed down to the
former militant leader in the Niger Delta.
The arrest of
the former minister and the media celebration of his alleged
involvement in the said alleged theft of crude oil is linked with his
avowed opposition to the 'near-dubious' security contract awarded to
a private Nigerian citizen to protect the water ways even when the
Navy is heavily underfunded and deliberately undermined by the same
system.
When the
arrest of the former interior minister came to our notice, our group-
HUMAN Rights Writers’ Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) immediately
addressed a media conference and totally condemned the alleged
harassment and intimidation of the immediate past interior minister
Captain Emmanuel Ihenacho by Nigerian Maritime And Safety Agency
(NIMASA) over alleged storage of “stolen crude oil” (AGO CARGO) in
the tank farm associated with the former minister of interior.
The manner of
the arrest of the former minister to us is a total violation of the
Fundamental Human Rights of a Nigerian citizen. We are aware of the
widely circulated defence put up by the former minister whereby he
cleared himself and company of involvement in the storage of the
alleged stolen petroleum products.
The firm run
by the former minister had claimed thus; “On Thursday the 13th
September 2012, our management was surprised by the incidence of the
vicious invasion of our Tank Farm facility at Ibafon by a group of
uniformed armed men, numbering about thirty and purporting themselves
to be acting on the orders and instructions of the D.G. NIMASA and
allegedly of Mr. Tompolo, MD, of a private company GVWSL.”
The immediate
past interior minister had also contrary to the allegation that his
company was in breach of the law in storing the said petroleum
products claimed thus; “In the course of the invasion, the intruders
ransacked the entire tank farm complex, arresting and violently
manhandling the workers at the complex, laying them flat on the
floor, seizing their hands sets. At the end of the day, five members
of the staff of the company were allegedly abducted and taken to
NIMASA for interrogation and have since been transferred to the SSS
at Shangisha where they were held incommunicado.”
As a human
rights organization, we recognize the sanctity of fundamental human
rights as enshrined in section 36 of the constitution of Nigeria of
1999 as amended. A Citizen alleged to be in breach of the law is
innocent in the eye of the law until proven guilty by a competent
court of law and must not be subjected to undue harassment or
physical/psychological torture through the instrumentality of
Government controlled power of coercion.
We are also
against the media trial that was carried out against the former
minister who we believe served this country creditably. If Government
believes that his firm has indeed breached any extant law, Government
is obliged to follow the due process of the law and not to use crude
means that is akin to abduction of a citizen.
I am of the
conviction that Nigeria must not return to the dark days of military
brute force or crude application of the law. This allegation is
serious and must be investigated by President Jonathan.
These serious
allegations must be probed more so when report shows that the said
petroleum products were validly cleared by all relevant authorities
including the necessary inwards clearance documentation, issued by
The Nigerian Navy, the Department of Petroleum Resources DPR, the
Nigerian Port Authority and surprisingly, NIMASA.
Now that NIMASA
has claimed that the clearance certificate paraded by the former
interior minister is fake it therefore behooves the Federal
Government to set up an independent panel to uncover the truth about
the entire scenario.
+Emmanuel Onwubiko, Head, Human Rights Writers
Association of Nigeria blogs @www.huriwa.blogspot.com.
24/9/2012
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